“Ewww!” I breathed as I looked at a can of monkey food. Did you know that there was such a thing as canned monkey food? Well there is, and that is what the Cotton Topped Tamarins at the Boston Museum of Science eat. There are three of these wonderful creatures there, a father, a sister, and a brother. Unfortunately, the mother died of colon cancer two years ago. Other than humans, the Cotton Topped Tamarins are the only mammals that can get colon cancer.

My classmates and I spent over 30 minutes watching these incredible creatures run and jump from limb to limb. A caretaker there told us that over all the years that she has worked there (about 10 years) she had never seen one of the Tamarins fall. Also, they seemed just as interested in us as we were interested in them. The population of this endangered species is less than 1,000 in the wild and 1,800 in captivity. Too soon we had to leave so that we could make it in time for the electricity show.