The Philippine Tarsier

During my one week vacation in Bohol, I had the rare privilege of coming face to face with a primate called Tarsius Syrichta or more commonly known as the tarsier. The Philippine tarsier is distinguished by its almost naked tail, gray fur and an elongated middle finger. They are so small, I held one and it was smaller than the palm of my hand, and I do have small hands. Their length is approximately 124 mm. excluding their tail and their weight varies depending on their sex. Females weigh approximately 117 gm. while males weigh around 134 gm.

Tarsiers prefer living in coastal forests and secondary lowlands and they prey on insects like lizards and cockroaches. The caretaker of the tarsier sanctuary we visited said that in captivity tarsiers will eat live fish and shrimp. I’m sure that it will be very interesting to see how they are able to ingest their food given their small size.

Their life span is 13. 5 years, they have only one offspring although they mate year round. Tarsiers are nocturnal and arboreal creatures and they move by leaping and clinging to tree branches. While in the tarsier sanctuary, I asked the caretaker to place two calm looking tarsiers on my shoulder and told my husband to take a photo. Alas, they leapt even before my husband could say “cheese”, perhaps they are camera-shy as well. They have elongated tarsal bones which enables them to leap from tree to tree in a distance of almost 10 feet. They are able to cling on branches both vertically and horizontally.

The eyes of the tarsier are their most compelling feature. Their eyes are enormously big for their entire body.. Each of their eye is larger than their entire brain and like owls, they are able to rotate their heads 360 degrees. I saw them do this and it’s really amazing.

Tarsiers are found in both the Philippines and Indonesia.