Taxonomy and Phylogeny
The species was first described by Linnaeus in 1758.
Philip Hershkovitz later performed a taxonomic analysis of the species in 1977, classifying the Panamanian tamarin Saguinus geoffroyi as a subspecies of Saguinus oedipus, which lives exclusively in Colombia, based on fur coloration patterns, cranial and mandibular morphology, and ear size. Other analyses made by Hernandez-Camacho & Cooper (1976), and later Mittermeier and Coimbra-Filho in 1981, and finally Grooves (2001) consider the oedipus and geoffroyi types to be distinct species.
Some researchers, such as Thorington (1976), posit that S. oedipus is more closely related to the white-footed tamarin S. leucopus than to S. geoffroyi. This view is supported by Hanihara & Natoria’s multivariate analysis of toothcomb dental morphology (1987) and by Skinner’s work in 1991, which found more similarities between S. oedipus and S. leucopus in 16 out of 17 morphological traits considered.
It has been proposed that this species of white-headed tamarin diverged from the other Amazonian forms such as S. leucopus. This is supported by morphological considerations of the transition from juvenile to adulthood, during which the fur coloration patterns change significantly and are similar between the two species. Hershkovitz proposed that the separation of the two species happened in the Pleistocene at the height of the Atrato river, where it intersected the Cauca-Magdalena. At this time, the area was covered by a sea, which created a geographic barrier that caused the species to diverge through the process of allopatric speciation. Today, the two species are principally separated by the Atrato river.
Read more about this topic: Cottontop Tamarin