Vocal exchanges between familiar cotton-top tamarins during social isolation

Abstract

Captive cotton-top tamarins produce variant forms of “long call” when separated from their social companions. In this article, vocal exchanges between familiar cotton-top tamarins during visual isolation were investigated experimentally. Two randomly selected subjects were separated from their colony, and were visually isolated into the separate cages in the same testing room. Antiphonal long calls within the restricted time period were more frequently observed between cage-paired tamarins than expected by chance. From this experimental finding, functional significances of the long calls during social isolation were discussed in conjunction with the previous findings in other primates of the New World, including tamarin and marmoset species.