Dr. Thomas Defler is a North American primatologist who has lived and worked in Colombia for many years. He earned his PhD from the University of Colorado at Denver in 1976 and then moved to Colombia. Defler first worked in eastern Colombia and then later in the Amazonian Vaupés Department where he developed and lived in his research station, Estación Biológica Caparú until 1998 when he was obligated to flee from his research station by FARC guerrillas. He is the author of many papers about primates and of the books Primates de Colombia (2003), Primates of Colombia (2004) and Historia Natural de los Primates Colombianos (2010). Dr. Defler’s interest in titi monkeys (Callicebus) was sparked when he first saw the animals in 1976 in Colombia’s El Tuparro National Park. During his 34 years of research on Colombian primates, he has studied such primates as the tufted capuchin, (Cebus paella), the white fronted capuchin (Cebus albifrons) red howler monkeys (Alouatta seniculus) woolly monkeys, (Lagothrix lagothricha), the black-headed ouakary (Cacajao ouakary), the mottled faced tamarin (Saguinus inustus), and the widow monkey (Callicebus lugens). His work is funded and supported by Conservation International’s Primate Action Fund, and the Iniciativa de Especies Amenazadas of Conservation International Colombia.

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