OVERVIEW
As of 2025 cotton-tops are listed as an endangered species with the remaining population numbering only a few thousand. When I worked on them in the 1970s they were much more numerous. This section provides access to a copy of my PhD thesis and my one resulting publication (which is out of print), and to reports made which include original observations. I have made these available as a public service because since none of it made it into journal form, it would be essentially inaccessible otherwise. This was a groundbreaking study, done by myself alone on marked monkeys in the pre-transistor days. New work by other talented researchers in the intervening 50 years has increased our knowledge but I still believe the work I did has not totally been duplicated.
Range: Northwestern Colombia
Status: Critically Endangered
Group Type: Cooperative Family Groups
Diet: Fruit, Insects, and Plant Exudates
Cotton-Top Tamarins
Right after I returned from Colombia I was invited to present my work at a conference on the biology of the Callitrichidae, which resulted in the 1977 article Aspects of the ecology and social organization of free-ranging Cotton-top Tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and the conservation status of the species. The report in Spanish entitled El Titi Cabeza-blanca (Saguinus oedipus) de la Costa Caribe de Colombia. Estudios de su ecologia y organizacion social, hechos en el ambiente natural, contained basically the same material. It was written for and made available through the Colombian government branch I worked with, at that time called Inderena.
However, a lot of material in my 1979 PhD thesis (University of California, Berkeley), entitled Ecology and Social Organization of the Cotton-top Tamarin (Saguinus oedipus), did not make it into the above or any publication or report. I am now making the entire thesis available here because I believe and hope the unpublished material could be useful to future investigators. In particular I want to note that one Appendix to the thesis includes phenological graphs I did in the coastal dry tropical forest where I was working, and a discussion of the character and composition of the forest.
Saguinus oedipus Reports by Patricia F. Neyman
Downloadable pdfs can be obtained by clicking on the blue text. Check back for more additions. If there’s something you need in a hurry email me a pf41n at yahoo dot com. Otherwise I will continue to scan and put up new items as time permits.
1975 El Titi Cabeza-blanca (Saguinus oedipus) de la Costa Caribe de Colombia. Estudios de su ecologia y organizacion social, hechos en el ambiente natural. Informe Final de Labores, 125p. Inderena, Bogota, Colombia.
1977 Aspects of the ecology and social organization of free-ranging Cotton-top Tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and the conservation status of the species. In: Kleiman, D.G. (ed) The Biology and Conservation of the Callitrichidae: 39-71. Smithsonian Press; Washington, D.C. 354 p.
1977 Proteccion y Manejo de los Primates de Sucre y de Cordoba. 31p. Please see next.
1977 The Protection and Management of Primates in Sucre and Cordoba (Colombia), A Report to the New York Zoological Society Regarding Studies Carried out in Colombia June – Sept. 1977. This report was required as a condition of the NYZS grant I was awarded to return to the 1973-76 study site for a brief period and to survey forests which might prove to be possible reserve sites for the species. It details the observations made on the Sinu and describes an area near Coloso which I strongly recommended be considered for a reserve. The Spanish report is more extensive than the English one, including description of what was observed and what local inhabitants told me, which led to my conclusion regarding the absence of Cotton tops in an area where previously we thought they might be present.
1977 How laboratories can contribute to studies of natural populations: with special reference to Callitrichids. Lab Primate News, July 1977: 1-7.
1979 Ecology and Social Organization of the Cotton-top Tamarin (Saguinus oedipus). PhD Thesis, University of California, Berkeley. PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1979. Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, Publication No. 8029521. https://disexpress.umi.com/ Read it at: https://search.proquest.com/docview/302956978 (May require subscription) Note: this work contains a lot of information not included in the 1977 article.
1981 Cotton-top Tamarin or Pinche In the IUCN Mammal Red-Data Book, Part 1: 126-130. This revision mentions the Sinu observations I made. It is very brief. For more detail on exactly what I saw and the conversations with local inhabitants of the areas I visited, see the Spanish 1977 report Proteccion y Manejo de los Primates de Sucre y de Cordoba.