Mono Titi

What do you think about that primates? It’s so cute, isn’t it? That primate’s name is Mono Titi and they are among the smallest of all primates, weighing in at around one and half pounds, the Mono Titi is as endearing as any creature in nature. Known as the “peaceful primates”, their social structure is unique in the egalitarian nature of their interactions. Both male and female nurture their young and they enjoy equal status within their troops. They live, they play and they love with the youthful exuberance of a band of mischievous teenagers on a holiday bash.

Prior to the middle of the twenty-century, the Pacific Coast of Central America was a sparsely inhabited frontier of wild coastal jungle. The Mono Titi had a range that extended hundreds of miles along the Pacific Coasts of Panama and Costa Rica. During the 1950’s Costa Rica emerged from third-world impoverishment through a nation wide effort to develop large-scale agricultural capacity across the country. The Pacific Coast region experienced widespread deforestation with the introduction of banana and cattle. This trend has played itself out to a degree where the habitat of the Mono Titi has now become so fragmented that their long-term survivability is in jeopardy.

Today Mono Titi’s habitat has been reduced to two restricted areas. There is a population in and around the Manuel Antonio National Park and there is another population in Corcovado National Park to the south. The Manuel Antonio habitat is an area that is less than 3000 acres in total. It is estimated that only around 1,700 of the animals are left in existence.