Description: This small monkey takes its name from the vivid, gold-orange mane of long hair that surrounds its face. Its body and tail are also reddish while its face is dark and hairless.

Diet: Golden Lion Tamarins are omnivores. They eat fruit, flowers, nectar, plant gum, small insects, frogs and lizards.

In the wild: Predators find it hard to track Golden Lion Tamarins because they move around so much. Tamarins never nest in the same spot for more than one night. However, they do scent-mark their territory as a warning to other groups of tamarins and to indicate their social status (particularly among males). The breeding males and females scent-mark more often than the non-breeding members of the group.

Threats: Golden Lion Tamarins were once found through a much greater part of Brazil than they are today. Logging and habitat conversion were the greatest contributors to their decline and in the 1970s there were fewer than 200 left in the wild.

In 1984, a reintroduction program for Golden Lion Tamarin began, coordinated by the US Smithsonian National Zoo. Over 30 years, zoo-born Golden Lion Tamarins were reintroduced into two nature reserves. Thanks to the program, Golden Lion Tamarins can still be found in the wild and there are now about 1,600 Golden Lion Tamarins in Brazil.

Their continued survival depends on re-establishing habitat and connecting forests so their numbers can expand.

Conservation at Perth Zoo: Perth Zoo is part of the regional breeding program for this species.