Callicebus is a genus of Neotropical primate of the family Pitheciidae. Thirty-two species are currently recognized. They are classified in two subgenera, Torquatus and Callicebus, and five species groups: C. torquatus, C. moloch, C. cupreus, C. donacophilus and C. personatus. The arrangement of subgenera and groups is based on morphology and geographic distributions. The first section, we is introduction to the taxonomy of Callicebus. In the second section, I present an article for submission to the jounrla Primates concerning the chapter presence or absence of a molecular region known as an Alu element. An Alu element is a transposon in the genome of primates Because of this particular characteristic of Alu insertion, I discovered that the C. moloch and C. cupreus groups are closely related and that C. torquatus is the basal group in the genus. In the third section , from a multilocus approach I investigated the phylogenetic relationships of the C. moloch group and the time of diversification between the species, in order to test the hypothesis of formation of the Amazon River basin during the Plio-Pleistocene. Our results support the hypothesis of origin of Amazonian rivers in the last 3 Ma. However, not all diversification events in Callicebus can be explained by the theory of rivers. the results also indicate that the different species groups are derived from a radiation in the Amazonian region at different times during the upper Miocene. The phylogenetic analysis identified a number of potentioal taxa that a number of taxa which the current knowledge of species diversity in Callicebus is underestimated, and that recently diversified species are taxonomically neglected.
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