Titi

Abstract: The modern taxonomy of the Infraorder Platyrrhini is deeply influenced by the numerous publications of the late Philip Hershkovitz (1909–1997). This has meant that in many aspects platyrrhine taxonomy has been extraordinarily stable over the last two decades, while his work has at the same time provided the wherewithal for considerable refinement and adjustments. Hershkovitz laid the foundation for the modern taxonomy of the New World primates first in his monumental treatise on the Families Callitrichidae and Callimiconidae (1977) (supplemented with revisions of the emperor tamarins, Saguinus imperator [1979] and black-mantle tamarins, S. nigricollis [1982]), and subsequently with a number of papers, results of his revisions of the systematics of most of the remaining extant platyrrhines that he lumped in a third family, the Cebidae: the saki monkeys Pithecia (1987a); the night monkeys, Aotus (1983); the squirrel monkeys, Saimiri (1984); the bearded sakis, Chiropotes (1985); the uacaris, Cacajao (1987b); and the titi monkeys, Callicebus (1988, 1990). Hershkovitz was working on the remaining genera for the second volume of his treatise, but his findings were never published. The foundations for the modern taxonomies of the capuchin monkeys (Cebus), howling monkeys (Alouatta), spider monkeys (Ateles), woolly monkeys (Lagothrix) and muriquis (Brachyteles) have had to depend, therefore, on studies such as those Kellogg and Goldman (1944) for the spider monkeys, Hershkovitz (1949) for Cebus in particular, Cabrera (1957) and Hill (1960, 1962) who covered all the platyrrhines, and Fooden (1963) for the woolly monkeys. It may well be that the legacy of Hershkovitz is the cause of there currently being more species and subspecies of primates in the New World than in Africa or Asia, providing as he did the capacity to compare findings with what is known, both in terms of the physiognomy of the primates under scrutiny and their supposed distributions. The latest taxonomies of the non-human primates indicate approximately

Abstract: Adenoviruses are DNA viruses that naturally infect many vertebrates, including humans and monkeys, and cause a wide range of clinical illnesses in humans Infection from individual strains has conventionally been thought to be species-specific Here we applied the Virochip, a pan-viral microarray, to identify a novel adenovirus (TMAdV, titi monkey adenovirus) as the cause of a deadly outbreak in a closed colony of New World monkeys (titi monkeys; Callicebus cupreus) at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) Among 65 titi monkeys housed in a building, 23 (34%) developed upper respiratory symptoms that progressed to fulminant pneumonia and hepatitis, and 19 of 23 monkeys, or 83% of those infected, died or were humanely euthanized Whole-genome sequencing of TMAdV revealed that this adenovirus is a new species and highly divergent, sharing <57% pairwise nucleotide identity with other adenoviruses Cultivation of TMAdV was successful in a human A549 lung adenocarcinoma cell line, but not in primary or established monkey kidney cells At the onset of the outbreak, the researcher in closest contact with the monkeys developed an acute respiratory illness, with symptoms persisting for 4 weeks, and had a convalescent serum sample seropositive for TMAdV A clinically ill family member, despite having no contact with the CNPRC, also tested positive, and screening of a set of 81 random adult blood donors from the Western United States detected TMAdV-specific neutralizing antibodies in 2 individuals (2/81, or 25%) These findings raise the possibility of zoonotic infection by TMAdV and human-to-human transmission of the virus in the population Given the unusually high case fatality rate from the outbreak (83%), it is unlikely that titi monkeys are the native host species for TMAdV, and the natural reservoir of the virus is still unknown The discovery of TMAdV, a novel adenovirus with the capacity to infect both monkeys and humans, suggests that adenoviruses should be monitored closely as potential causes of cross-species outbreaks