Rain Forest
Maybe the most mysterious, mystical, magical and endangered of all biomes is
the rain forest. It is estimated that 2,000 trees a minute are cut down in the world’s rain forests, home to more than 15 million species of plants and animals, some 50 million tribal people and the source of countless ingredients of medicine. Logging, agriculture, mining, industry and the construction of hydroelectric dams are stripping away the jungle at an alarming rate. The large amount of carbon dioxide that is released due to the cutting and burning of forests contributes to the greenhouse effect.

Half of the world’s tropical rain forests are in Brazil. Here the temperature is a near constant 80 degrees with rainfall between 70 inches and several hundred inches a year – just the way the green aracari and the Geoffroy’s marmoset like it.

The green aracari (Pteroglossus viridis) is a miniature relative of woodpeckers and toucans. “We brought our three females here to be part of the mixed-species exhibit, along with the howler monkeys and the yellow-spotted Amazon River turtles,” Boehm says.

Look for the the aracaris at the Regenstein Small Mammal-Reptile House, where they’re usually in the upper canopy of the habitat, with a good view of the monkeys just below.

“They’re about the size of a cardinal, but their bills, which are three to four inches long, are out of proportion to their body,” Boehm says. “They’re very bold birds. When we introduced them to the howlers they would swoop down and try to bite the monkeys’ tails. When agitated themselves, they’ll make a sound similar to a dolphin’s trilling.”

The aracari’s beak is lined with serrated edges, which are good for gripping slippery fruit. It can often be seen flipping fruit upward and catching it in the back of its throat. Along with fruit, the aracari’s diet in the wild – in the tropical rain forests and swamps of southern Mexico, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil – includes large insects, small reptiles and occasionally other birds’ eggs and nestlings. Incidentally, despite its name, you’ll see very little green plumage on a male aracari. The population of aracari’s in the wild is stable.

Standing on shakier ground in the wild is the Geoffroy’s marmoset (Callithrix geoffroyi), whose status is threatened due to habitat destruction and capture for the pet trade. It is now seen in small forest fragments in one corner of Brazil. Sixty-four live in North American zoos. Including three – dam, sire and offspring – at the Helen Brach Primate House. (In an unusual arrangement, the marmosets are on loan to the zoo from the Brazilian government, which owns the animals.)

The marmosets sport an unusual combination of colors and markings. The fur on their backs resembles calico cats, their thin tails are striped like a raccoon’s, and their faces are masks of white. “They’re inquisitive, friendly and very social monkeys,” says Andy Henderson, area supervisor for primates.

They’re also very active, leaping, chasing and foraging for hours. In the wild, marmosets spend up to 70 percent of their time foraging and processing food, including small birds and mammals, eggs, lizards, frogs and crustaceans. This species is also known as gummivores, because they suck the sap from tree branches.

The zoo participates in the Geoffroy’s Marmoset Species Survival Plan.