Critically Endangered
Crowned sifaka
Propithecus coronatus
The crowned sifaka is a sifaka endemic to western Madagascar, a part of the world where nature and its biological diversity faces enormous and devastating consequences resulting from anthropogenic activities.
Appearance
The crowned sifaka is characterized by a creamy white body with tinges of golden brown around the shoulder region, upper chest and back with a dark chocolate or black head with white ear tufts. Their dark grey face is hairless and they have a white tail. Crown sifaka color variations occur more commonly in the lower regions of the sifakas range between the Mahavavy and Manombolo rivers.
The crowned sifaka is a medium-sized sifaka who has a total length of 87 to 102 centimeters, of that 47-57 centimeters are tail, and 39.5 - 45.5 cm are the head and body.
Range and habitat
The crowned sifaka is found in the mangroves and dry deciduous and riparian forests of northwest Madagascar. Surveys have shown in the northern range of its habitat the crowned sifaka inhabits the forest between the Mahavavy River and Betsiboka River and extending south to the region of highly fragmented forests around the Tsiribihina River, Mahajilo River, and Mania River. It is believed that Mania River is the southern limit of its range, where it meets with P. Verrauxi's range.
Conservation measures should be enforced in these area if we want to preserve the color variations of P. Coronatus and be able to study it more closely to get a better understanding of how these varying fur pigmentations occur.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
The crowned sifaka is a diurnal animal, primarily active during the day. The species is an arboreal vertical climber and leaper whose diet consists of leaves, fruits and flowers.
In crisis
It is threatened by habitat destruction caused by human activities and is currently classified as critically endangered by the IUCN. The very restricted range and fragmented populations of the crowned sifaka are major concerns for the continuation of this species. Habitat destruction, forest fragmentation, slash and burn agriculture, capture for illegal pet trade, and illegal hunting constitute major threats.
The species is currently listed by the IUCN Red List as critically endangered according to A2acd criteria, and is listed as CITES Appendix I. Additionally, the crowned sifaka population is expected to decline by another 32% in the nearby future due to habitat fragmentation and the resulting time-lagged effect.
Crowned sifaka is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Crowned sifaka, Wikidata item Q179384. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
