Primates are able to live in simpatry distinguishing the use of habitat, food resources, vertical stratum and foraging techniques. A group of Callithrix penicillata (Hershkovitz, 1977) and a group of Cebus libidinosus (Spix, 1823) were observed in the gallery forests of the Distrito Federal (DF) with the objective of detecting diet influence on the simpatry of these two species. The climate in the DF is well defined, with one dry season from May to September and another rainy season from October to April. The observations made over the plant species used as food for each primate genus provided data on the percentage of food utilization, elucidating the differences on the consumption of the items in both seasons of the studied year. Only two vegetal species had their fruits consumed by the two primate groups, Sacoglottis guianensis Benth. (Humiriaceae) and Cheiloclinium cognatum (Miers) A.C.Sm. (Hippocrateaceae). The differences in the consumption of the food ingested for Callithrix and Cebus in both climate seasons elucidate that some vegetal species and some invertebrate are preferred, enriching the diet in the periods of minor availability of resources.
Foraging; primates
