Thursday, October 28, 2010

Rhinopithecus strykeri: Hunted and eaten by locals

With the announcement of the newly discovered Rhinopithecus strykeri yesterday, we were only given a glimpse of this new species through an illustration and a computer modified image (Photoshopped none the less). I bet everyone was wondering why aren't there any pictures of these snub-nosed monkeys.


Ponder no more. Here's a photo from National Geographic showing local hunters with a dead R. strykeri that's about to be dinner (photo by Ngwe Lwin). The researchers (Geissmann et al., 2010) were not able to procure a photo of any live R. strykeri. Supposedly, they captured some wild ones but they had escaped before pictures were taken. R. strykeri are threatened by hunting and habitat destruction due to logging.

Reference:
Geissmann. T, Lwin. G, Aung. S, Naing Aung. T, Aung. Z M, Hla. T, Grindley. M, Momber. F, “A new species of Snub-nosed monkey, Genus Rhinopithecus Milne-Edwards, 1872 (Primates, Colobianae), From Northern Kachin State, Northeastern Myanmar”, American Journal of Primatology, Wiley-Blackwell, October 2010, DOI: 10.1002/ajp.20894

Edit: To request a copy of the paper by Geissmann et al. (2010), click here.

3 comments:

Zachary Cofran said...

That is clearly a human in a Rhinopithecus suit. That monster's huge!

Raymond Vagell said...

Michael Jackson lives on ... (sans the nose).

Anonymous said...

But this is sad an endangered monkey.