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PARIS: In a rare find, scientists have identified a new species of primate, an agile tree-dweller living in the forests of central Myanmar with a mask-like face framed by a mass of unruly gray hair.
The Popa langur, named for an extinct volcano that is home to its largest population of about 100 individuals, has been around for at least a million years, according to a study detailing the find, published Wednesday (November 11) in Zoological. Research.
But with only 200 to 250 in the wild today, experts will recommend that species that eat leaves be classified as “critically endangered.”
“Just described, the Popa langur is already facing extinction,” said lead author Frank Momberg, a researcher at Flora & Fauna International (FFI) in Yangon.
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Throughout its range, the agile monkey with chalk-white rings around its eyes is threatened by hunting and habitat loss, it said in a statement.
The first evidence of the new species was not found in nature, but in the back rooms of the Natural History Museum in London, where genetic analysis revealed that specimens collected more than a century ago when Burma was a British colony were something new.
Popa poop samples collected by Momberg and his colleagues in the forest matched those from the museum and showed that the previously unknown langur was still roaming the wild.
The lonely monkeys were finally captured on film in 2018, revealing their distinctive skin color and markings.
Trachypithecus popa, or T popa for short, has a gray-brownish-white belly, with black glove-like hands and wrists.
Its agile tail, almost a meter long, is longer than its body, and the creature weighs about 8 kg.
The Popa langur gets its name from the extinct volcano in Myanmar, which is home to around 100 primates. (Photo: AFP / Thaung Win)
“Additional field studies and protective measures are urgently needed, to be carried out by FFI and others to save langurs from extinction,” said Ngwe Lwin, primatologist for the FFI program in Myanmar.
Scientists at the German Primate Center in Goettingen, Germany, co-led the research.
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There are more than 20 species of langur in the world, several of them critically endangered.
The best known of these is the gray langur or Hanuman, named for the prominent wandering monkey god in the Hindu epic Ramayana.
At least two dozen primates have been discovered since the turn of the century, many of which through genetic analysis revealed that apparently similar species were in fact distinct.
Primates are divided into two suborders. Strepsirrhines – from the Greek for “crooked nose” – includes lemurs and lorisids.
The second suborder, haplorhines or “dry-nosed” primates, includes the tarsier, apes, and langurs.
There are more than 20 critically endangered species of primates in the world today.
