Scientists Discover New Endangered Primate Species
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:
Scientists discover new endangered primate species:
Scientists have discovered a new primate species in the jungles of Myanmar - and it's already at risk of extinction.
The Popa langur is a type of monkey with a long tail, rings around its eyes, and a crest of fur on top of its head.There are only an estimated 200 to 260 left, according to a news release by the London Natural History Museum, which collaborated on this study.
The research team named the Popa langurs after the sacred extinct volcano Mount Popa and classified them as "critically endangered.""Sadly, this is a bittersweet discovery due to the limited number of individuals left in the wild and fragmented populations," Roberto Portela Miguez, a senior curator at the Natural History Museum, in the release, said.
[...] The Popa langurs were likely once widespread across central Myanmar, according to the study, which analysed historical records like museum specimens and travel notes - but only a few groups survived. Now, the remaining individuals only live in four isolated populations.
Additional coverage at BBC and The Guardian.
Journal Reference:
Christian Roos, Kristofer M. Helgen, Roberto Portela Miguez, et al. Mitogenomic phylogeny of the Asian colobine genus Trachypithecus with special focus on Trachypithecus phayrei (Blyth, 1847) and description of a new species, Zoological Research (DOI: 10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2020.254)
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