Tarsiers like me suffer from a number of factors over the years that has seen our reduction in numbers. The destruction of the Rain Forests have been one of these factors as we all live in this type of terrain. As these have systematically been removed so the my extended family numbers have fallen.
Another factor is the hunting of my relatives for pets. The Japanese and Mexicans buy us for as little as 100 pesos (£1.50).
However we generally do not live long in captivity unless they can keep us happy and engaged. President Fidel V. Ramos signed Proclamation 1030 which has made the Tarsier a protected species.
This is for the student who wishes to know some more about me
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Tarsiidae
Common Name: Philippine Tarsier
Red List Category & Criteria:
DD - Assessed in the year 2000 by A. Eudey and members of the Primate Specialist Group and Evaluted by WR Konstant, RA Mittermeier & AB Rylands from the Primate Red List Authority. The DD category means 'Data Deficient'. This indicates that there is insufficient data to provide a proper assessment of whether the animal is in risk of extinction. More work needs to be conducted on the population figures of my relatives so that we can be properly categorised. Without such a category nobody knows the try state of decline of my relatives.
Morphology:
As you can see from my photographs, I have large eyes and also large ears. These both help me to hunt during the night as I usually sleep during the day. My neck is specially adapted so that I can turn my head 180 degrees. While my eyes are large they are fixed not like yours. Hence I need to be able to move my neck and head instead.
My teeth are also different My dental formula is 2:1:3:3 on my upper jaw and 1:1:3:3 on my lower. My upper canines are relatively small.
On my feet I have two grooming claws and not one like most animals. My tail is naked except for a tuft of hair at the end. This helps me cling on to the trees I live in.
My normal colour is gray.
Range:
You can find me on a number of islands in the Philippines including Mindanao, Letye, Samar and Bohol. The Foundation that helps my family survive is based on Bohol and this is the best place to see me as I normally live in primary and secondary rainforests and only come out at night.
Ecology:
I eat insects but sometimes find a small lizard very tasty. If the item is large I will catch it with my hands although smaller items I normally catch in my mouth.
I sleep in the dense tangles of saplings and ferns as well as inside the clumps that can be found at the base of bamboo trees. We usually find a spot about 2 metres above the ground and we usually nest in groups although we have been known to start out on our own.
Locomotion:
I am what is known as a vertical clinger and leaper in that I cling on to the trees and branches with my tail and the suction cups on my fingers and leap from branch to branch. I have elongated tarsus bones and a fused fibula and tibia which all helps me to leap from one branch to the other and doing this we can travel distances without touching the ground.
Social Behaviour:
I am usually a solitary animal although when it comes to mating I can be monogamous or sometimes polygynous.
Communications:
We have a number of ways of communicating. Young Tarsiers develop a distress call which they use if they get separated from their mothers. We groom each other for parasites and dead skin as a form of social communications.
Reproduction:
When a female gives birth it is to a single offspring. These are born with their eyes open and covered by hair.
Other Comments:
I and my friends sometimes fall prey to snakes and the Philippine Eagle. However the greatest demise in my relatives was probably down to two factors.
We are so cute that some people like to take us home as pets. This is particularly so in Japan. My cousins have been hunted for sale to Japan and other countries for a number of years. We are very sensitive and if we find ourselves alone and without a mate we have to be very well looked after else we suffer from depression. Some of my family who have been very unhappy as pets have atually committed suicide by banging their heads on the bars of their cage.
The other reason is that we live in what is rainforest. Unfortunately like other countries the rainforests of the Philippines are much reduced in size to what they used to be and are shrinking all the time. Many people are trying to stop this but the forests keep shrinking. On the island of Bohol they have planted a man made rainforest which I think is a good start to redressing this situation.
So please support the rainforests and don't buy us for pets. Come to Bohol, to the Foundation and see us where we should be - free and living in the rainforest.
