Primate Watching
*Latest* November 2015: Launch of The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates 2014-2016
The latest Primates in Peril: The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates 2014-2016 has just been launched during the most recent IUCN Asian Primates Red List Assessment Workshop at the Singapore Zoo. Among the list are the Javan Slow Loris, Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey, Sumatran Orangutan, Tana River Red Colobus, Red Ruffed Lemur, and the Ecuadorian Brown-headed Spider Monkey. The official publication is available for download below:
*Latest* November 2015: IUCN Asian Primates Red List Assessment Workshop
The IUCN/SSC (International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission) recently held an Asian Primates Red List Assessment Workshop at the Singapore Zoo. The last assessment was in Cambodia in 2006. This time, more than 40 primate specialists and researchers spent five days assessing and updating the distribution and conservation status of all 187 taxa (species and subspecies) of Asian primates. Assessments are now being finalized and would be available on the official IUCN Red List of Threatened Species website by 2017.
The IUCN Asian Primate Specialist Group and our host,
the Wildlife Reserves Singapore at the Singapore Zoo
October 2015: A New Primate Species at the Root of Tree of Living Hominoids
The extinct Pliobates cataloniae, uncovered in Abocador de Can Mata, Barcelona, Spain, is believed to be a possible ancestor of all living hominoids (humans, great apes, and small apes which are gibbons). Pliobates cataloniae's gibbon-like characteristics indicate that the early ancestors of hominoids might actually be more similar to living gibbons than to the great apes than previously thought. More can be found here.
© Marta Palmero/Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont