Breakfast is best for tiny two-some!

Wednesday 29 April 2015

Two cheeky little monkeys now have names thanks to a competition to help their species struggling to survive in the wild.

Keepers at Durrell, who couldn’t decide on a name for the pied tamarin twins, were inundated with suggestions and have gone for Waffle and Maple – the perfect names, put forward by two sisters, for the pair who come from a family named after a variety of breakfast treats including Omelette, Bean and Benedict.

Every suggestion cost Islanders £1 and the competition ended up raising £1,000 that will go towards helping Waffle and Maple’s native species, the most endangered monkeys living in South America’s Amazon rainforest.

Durrell's Head of Mammals Dominic Wormell said: "The beautiful pied tamarin is considered to be the most threatened primate in all of the amazon, with a tiny range of occurrence in and around the ever expanding city of Manaus. The tamarins habitat is disappearing at an alarming rate. Durrell is working with its partners in Brazil on the rescue and translocation of tamarins in isolated fragments of forest, and on the creating of forest corridors to connect up the remaining forest.

"Durrell has been very successful at breeding this very sensitive species and at present we are running courses in Brazil to help build capacity to look after the species in its native Brazil.”

Waffle and Maple were born at the end of last year and the senior mammal keeper says they are both doing well, becoming more independent and adventurous every day and although some of us would like to start the day with waffles and maple syrup, she says they are much more partial to locusts!

Sisters Kaylee and Jemma Mullins have won an animal adoption for coming up with the winning names.