Golden | 台北市立動物園資訊網

Golden-headed lion tamarins are frugivorous, eating mostly soft, sweet fruits. They will also eat flowers, nectar, insects and small invertebrates. These tamarins may also eat exudates (gums) opportunistically, especially the large quantities sometimes exuded from wounds in wild cashew trees and beans from leguminous trees. They do not eat leaves.

Recent research has demonstrated that marmosets and tamarins play a significant role in seed dispersal. Many of the fruits they eat have seeds that pass through the monkeys digestive tract unharmed and end up deposited well away from the parent plant. The seeds may also help to dislodge intestinal parasites in the monkeys digestive tract. Tamarins and marmosets spend about 25 to 30 percent of their time foraging for animal prey.

Food sharing is more important in the lion tamarins than in other marmosets and tamarins, and helps maintain social stru...