Monkey Feared Extinct Rediscovered

Stephanie Pappas LiveScience 20 Jan 12;

An elusive monkey feared extinct has shown up in the remote forests of Borneo, posing for the first good pictures of the animal ever taken.

The mug shots reveal a furry Count Dracula of sorts, with the monkey's black head, face tipped with white whiskers and a pointy collar made of fluffy white fur.

The Miller's grizzled langur, an extremely rare primate that has suffered from habitat loss over the last 30 years, popped up unexpectedly in the protected Wehea Forest in east Kalimantan, Borneo.

"We knew we had found this primate that some people had speculated was potentially extinct," said study researcher Stephanie Spehar, a primatologist at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. "It was really exciting."

But the animal is still in grave danger, Spehar told LiveScience, and no one knows how many of these langurs are left. The researchers observed only two small groups of them.

Vanishing act

The shy monkey (Presbytis hosei canicrus) was seen in the 1970s in Kutai National Park in Borneo, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from where the new population lives. But as the years passed, fires and illegal logging devastated Kutai. By 2008, the Miller's grizzled langur seems to have vanished from the park. A survey that year found just five langurs living on the Sangkulirang Peninsula in East Kalitmantan, also about 50 miles (80 km) away from the newly discovered langur habitat. But by 2010, that group of primates had also disappeared.

"At this point, we didn't know if this animal still existed or whether it was still hiding out in little pockets," Spehar said.

Spehar has been working in the Wehea Forest of Borneo for four years, but she'd never seen a Miller's grizzled langur there. Last summer, however, one of her undergraduate students camped out by a mineral lick area for 10 days, a spot where animals come to get nutrients from mineral-rich soil and water. The student, Eric Fell, was conducting his own research project on animals' use of these licks, and was photographing the creatures that dropped by. [Gallery: Elusive Wildlife Photos]

Upon returning from his stakeout, Fell showed Spehar his photographs. Among them were images of long-tailed, black-headed langurs.

"I knew this was something special," Spehar said. "I knew that it was something that was unexpected and we hadn't seen before."

Monkey reborn

Spehar, who credits the find to the work of local communities and governments that protect the forest and support her research, showed the photos to another researcher working in the woods, the director of the conservation organization Ethical Expeditions Brent Loken. The revelation surprised both parties: It turned out that Loken's group had also been staking out a mineral lick 5 miles (8 km) away from Fell's with a motion-triggered camera. They'd captured an image of the same type of primate.

"We realized that we had basically rediscovered this animal," Spehar said. Taxonomists confirmed the find as a Miller's grizzled langur. The researchers reported their find today (Jan. 20) in the American Journal of Primatology.

The simultaneous discovery suggests that there is a decent-size population of the langurs in Wehea, but Spehar cautioned that incredibly little is known about the species. No one knows how wide the langurs' range is, she said, how many there are, or their population density. That lack of knowledge isn't uncommon for many threatened species, according to Loken.

"This monkey represents a lot of species on the planet that we know very little about," Loken told LiveScience. "We don't know how many there are, we don't know where they live, what ecological requirements they need to live, and unless we get some of that information quickly, some of these species could slip into extinction before we know anything about them, or even realize that they're gone."

While Wehea itself is a more than 98,000-acre (40,000-hectare) oasis of protection, it is surrounded by forest used for logging, palm oil plantations and mining — the same sort of human uses that presumably drove the langurs out of the habitats where they once thrived. Additionally, the forest is only protected by the local community, Loken said, not the central government.

That makes the future of the Miller's grizzled langur very uncertain, Spehar said. She and her colleagues plan to conduct further research into the monkey's range and behavior to understand how best to save it from extinction. Meanwhile, Loken's group and others are working to secure extra protection for the forest.

"What we hope to do is to work with companies and concessions and with local governments to ensure this animal's protection," Spehar said. "That's the only way we will ensure that it doesn't disappear."

Elusive endangered monkeys caught on camera in Borneo
Ella Davies Reporter, BBC Nature 20 Jan 12;

One of the world's most endangered primates has been caught on camera by scientists on the island of Borneo.

Using time-lapse recordings to investigate the diversity of the remote Wehea forest, the team were surprised to see an unusual sub-species.

Close analysis confirmed that they had photographed a group of Miller's grizzled langurs.

Fears for the monkeys' future were sparked last year when none were recorded in previously known habitats.

The international team of researchers suggest their evidence could indicate a more optimistic future.

"Our findings confirm that indeed this monkey still lives in the forests of Borneo and we found that its range extends farther inland than scientists had previously thought," said PhD student Brent Loken from Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada.

"This gives us hope that we may still be able to find large enough populations of this monkey to ensure its survival."

The team's findings are published in the American Journal of Primatology.

Populations of Miller's grizzled langurs were first described in Kutai National Park and Sangkulirang Peninsula, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, in 1985.

However, due to habitat loss and hunting, subsequent studies recorded falling numbers of the monkeys in these areas with no activity recorded last year.

Scientists from Indonesia, the Czech Republic, US and Canada worked together to set up hidden cameras so they could learn more about the animals living in the rainforest.

Stunned by the results of their initial camera-trap study, scientists returned to the location to photograph the little-known monkeys in greater detail.

"It was a challenge to confirm our finding as there are so few pictures of this monkey available for study," said Mr Loken.

"The only description of Miller's grizzled langur came from museum specimens. Our photographs from Wehea are some of the only pictures that we have of this monkey."

'Extinct' Monkey Rediscovered in Borneo
Environment New Service 24 Jan 12;

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, January 24, 2012 (ENS) - Miller's grizzled langur, a species of monkey that was believed to be extinct or on the verge of extinction has been found in Borneo by an international team of scientists.

Findings of the team of Canadian, U.S. and Indonesian scientists, published in the "American Journal of Primatology," confirm the continued existence of this monkey. Photos captured by their camera trap show that it lives in an area where it was not known to exist.

Miller's grizzled langur, Presbytis hosei ssp. canicrus, once was found across Borneo, Sumatra, Java and the Thai-Malay Peninsula.

In 2008, the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species classified this subspecies of langur as Endangered in light of a continuing decline of the population inferred from extensive habitat loss, fragmentation and hunting. Habitat loss has been at least nearly 50 percent in the past 20 years. Where the subspecies remains it is heavily hunted.

The geographical boundaries of this subspecies are unknown, says the IUCN Red List, which suggests it should be reassessed once this becomes clearer, since determining its extent could result in either a Critically Endangered or a Vulnerable assessment in the future.

In Borneo, this langur is found only in a small northeastern corner of the country. Its habitat has been degraded by fires, human encroachment and conversion of land for agriculture and mining.

The team's expedition took to them to Wehea Forest in East Kalimantan, Borneo, a large 38,000 hectare (146 square mile) area of mostly undisturbed rainforest. Wehea contains at least nine known species of non-human primate, including the Bornean orangutan and gibbon.

Team member Brent Loken of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada said, "Discovery of P.h. canicrus was a surprise since Wehea Forest lies outside of this monkey's known range. Future research will focus on estimating the population density for P.h. canicrus in Wehea and the surrounding forest."

"Concern that the species may have gone extinct was first raised in 2004, and a search for the monkey during another expedition in 2008 supported the assertion that the situation was dire," Loken said.

By conducting observations at mineral licks where animals congregate and setting up camera traps in several locations, the expedition confirmed that Miller's grizzled langur continues to survive in areas west of its previously recorded geographic range.

The photos provide the first solid evidence demonstrating that its geographic range extends further than previously thought.

"It was a challenge to confirm our finding as there are so few pictures of this monkey available for study," said Loken. "The only description of Miller's grizzled langur came from museum specimens. Our photographs from Wehea are some of the only pictures that we have of this monkey."

"East Kalimantan can be a challenging place to conduct research, given the remoteness of many remaining forested areas, so it isn't surprising that so little is known about this primate," said Dr. Stephanie Spehar, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh.

"We are very grateful to our local partners," she said. "This discovery represents the hard work, dedication, and collaboration of western and Indonesian scientists, students, NGOs, as well as local communities and government."

"While our finding confirms the monkey still exists in East Kalimantan, there is a good chance that it remains one of the world's most endangered primates," said Loken.

"I believe it is a race against time to protect many species in Borneo," he said. "It is difficult to adopt conservation strategies to protect species when we don't even know the extent of where they live. We need more scientists in the field working on understudied species such as Miller's grizzled langur, clouded leopards and sun bears."