Lab Management - Callitrichids

Question 1

How are marmosets and tamarins typically housed?

Answer 1

Pairs or small family groups.

Question 2

Generally, at what environmental temperatures should animals be housed? Cotton-top tamarins do not acclimate to temperate environments and are metabolically stressed at temperatures lower than what? This has been proposed as a potential cause of what?

Answer 2

Warm. 32 C, 89F. Chronic colitis.

Question 3

What arrangement of caging is preferred? What area of the cage is not well utilized?

Answer 3

Single, narrow high cages over wide, low cages placed over each other in a two-tiered system. The floor.

Question 4

Cages should be built with high vertical space to allow what?

Answer 4

Animals to escape above human eye level.

Question 5

What type of surface do callitrichids require for sleep?

Answer 5

Flat surface where they can assume a curled position to conserve body heat.

Question 6

How often should nest boxes be sanitized? On what schedule? Why?

Answer 6

Every other week, on alternate weeks from sanitization of the cages to allow for retention of social odor or scent marks.

Question 7

Where should feed stations be placed? How many?

Answer 7

Above floor. Multiple if more than one animal is present in the cage.

Question 8

Which sex scent marks and how? What material should be provided for scent marking?

Answer 8

Both sexes with sex glands and urine. Wood of fiber structures for scent marking.

Question 9

What can be provided to decrease territorial behavior?

Answer 9

Incorporating visual barriers

Question 10

What are normal behaviors? Which ages display these behaviors typically?

Answer 10

Allogrooming in sexually mature individuals. Play in infants and subadults. Aggression can be seen among family members, but is usually brief and nondestructive.

Question 11

What is the outcome of introducing mature adults into breeding groups?

Answer 11

Destabilizing and may result in fighting

Question 12

Why do Callitrichids need a high-energy diet?

Answer 12

High metabolic rate, short GI transit time, and faster growth.

Question 13

Callitrichids have a nutritional requirement for what?

Answer 13

Dietary vitamin D3 and ascorbic acid (Vitamin C)

Question 14

Standard NWM diets have been associated with the development of what condition due to elevated levels of what mineral?

Answer 14

Hepatic hemosiderosis in marmosets due to dietary iron.

Question 15

Historically, what was fed as a protein source? Why is this not recommended?

Answer 15

Neonatal mice. Source of pathogen transmission.

Question 16

Callithrix jacchus are commonly affected by what condition? What does this result in? What is it characterized by? What is this condition often referred to as? What is the treatment and prognosis?

Answer 16

Chronic IBD of small intestine with villous atrophy and a maldigestion malabsorption syndrome. Characterized by weight loss, muscular atrophy, anemia, and hypoalbuminemia. Marmoset wasting disease. No treatment, prognosis poor.

Question 17

What condition is Saguinus oedipus predisposed to? How does it differ from marmosets? What is it a model for? How can it be modified?

Answer 17

IBD of large intestine, with chronic active inflammation and crypt abcessation. Used as a model of ulcerative colitis. Modified by dietary, environmental, and genetic factors.

Question 18

What is unique about the body temperature of Callitrichids during sleep?

Answer 18

Develop a distinct torpor with hypothermia (34 C)

Question 19

What are advantages of Callitrichids in research? Disadvantages?

Answer 19

Small size, more affordable housing and animal care costs, high repro capacity, and earlier age of sexual maturity (compared to macaques). Do not carry latent macacine herpesvirus 1 so safer to handle.
Small body size may limit sample size and collection frequency.

Question 20

What is the common and scientific name of the callitrichid species most widely used in biomedical research?

Answer 20

Common marmoset, Callithrix jacchus

Question 21

C. jacchus serves as models for what diseases?

Answer 21

Parkinson’s, aging and age-related disease, EAE which mimics MS, idiopathic hemochromatosis.

Question 22

Why has research with tamarins progressively declined?

Answer 22

Classification of species as endangered, requiring a permit from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Question 23

What is the common and scientific name of the tamarin that is a model for chronic colitis and colon cancer? What is unique about this animal?

Answer 23

Cotton-top tamarin, Saguinus oedipus, CITES I

Question 24

What are the two species used in viral hepatitis research? Which of these species has an additional use?

Answer 24

S. labiatus - Red-bellied
S. mystax - Mustached. Also a model for cardiomyopathy