9781422279144

“Primates in Peril: The World’s 25 Most Endangered Pri- mates.” The 2015 edition was alarming. More than half of the 703 species and subspecies of the world’s primates are in danger of extinction, the report warned. The endangered primates live in every corner of the world. Madagascar and Vietnam are both home to large numbers of highly threatened species. In Africa, the red colobus mon- key is under extreme threat, and in South America, some types of howler monkeys and spider monkeys could totally disappear in the near future. One of the most endangered primates is the Hainan gib- bon (part of a group known as the lesser apes), which lives, as far as scientists know, only in the Bawangling Nature Re- serve, on the western side of the Chinese island of Hainan. Back in the 1960s, the gibbons could be found all over the island, but since then, the population has declined at least 80 percent due to hunting and loss of habitat; there are now well fewer than 100 mature individuals alive today. A prominent spot on the list is also given to the Sumatran orangutan, an ape with distinctive long red fur that lives mainly on the northern side of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Scientists estimate that there are fewer than 15,000 Sumatran orangutans alive today. Sadly, their

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