I have to wonder if one person in my state ever got his. He had planned on purchasing two.
Was it actually a pygmy marmoset, or just a common marmoset?
I know someone who has been looking for a pygmy marmoset for awhile, hasn't been able to find one, and found that most of the people claiming to be selling "finger monkeys" were actually selling common marmosets, which are still tiny.
This person is convinced that pygmy marmosets cannot be obtained by private individuals in the US. Because they only eat gum, they're really hard to care for properly, while other species of marmoset can be fed a more traditional monkey diet; I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she's right.
I tempted with the Pigmy Marmosets though, their in the thousands to purchase.
Common marmosets I've seen sell for $5-7k, other Callitrichid primates (marmosets and tamarins) go for more. I haven't even seen a Pygmy marmoset for sale, but I imagine the price difference would be akin to the difference between a sun conure and a Queen-of-Bavaria conure, an order of magnitude more expensive.
As we all know, with keeping Exotic Birds it doesn't stop there.
It certainly doesn't, although Callitrichid primates only need a macaw-sized cage, and my impression is that in terms of difficulty of care they're similar to amazons, maybe a little easier. Pretty much all other monkeys either need a large outdoor enclosure or free run of the house and are very destructive for their size (though more destructive than a similarly-sized parrot?), while marmosets and tamarins are relatively placid except for being nippy.
Of all the primates, I find them the most tempting (with lemurs coming a close second), but but seeing as I've never had a mammalian pet, I don't think I'd start with a marmoset even if I had the money and space for it.
I did a little research on them, like birds, primates are social , and would thrive in a group or at the least a pair. From what I was reading about them, maybe like birds they would bond to a human out of default. Not sure though.
Everything I've read about marmosets and tamarins says that they
need to be kept in pairs. However you can certainly find videos on YouTube of people who have only one marmoset and it seems to be showing no ill effects. I haven't seen people being as adamant about keeping other kinds of monkeys in pairs, but marmosets are some of the most popular pet primates. The advice to keep them in pairs or groups may be predicated on the assumption that people who get them won't socialize them enough, but if I were to get any I'd get two just to be safe.
Maybe that's why I always have seen monkeys wearing underpants.
A lot of people with monkeys "diaper train" them, which means training them not to pull of their diapers. My personal feeling is that it's as absurd as those parrot diapers I used to see advertised, and looks even more ridiculous. If you can't handle an animal's natural habits or train out the ones you object to, you probably should probably rethink getting that animal.