Tonkin snub-nosed monkey

Appearance

The Tonkin snub-nosed monkey has a flattened face with a pink upturned nose, thickened pink lips and areas of blue skin around its eyes. The upper parts are black, the underparts creamy-white, and there is an orange patch on the throat that is particularly obvious in breeding males. Juveniles are grey rather than black, and lack the orange throat patch.

Its head-and-body length is 51 to 65 cm (20 to 26 in) and its tail 66 to 92 cm (26 to 36 in). Females weigh about 8 kg (18 lb) while males weigh 14 kg (31 lb).

First described in 1912, the monkey was rediscovered in 1989 but is exceedingly rare.

Range and habitat

The Tonkin snub-nosed monkey resides in primary forests that consist of bamboo and broadleaf evergreen. Recorded at elevations between 200 and 1,200 m (660 and 3,940 ft), its distribution is currently restricted to these forests that are located on hilltops and mountains created from karst limestone. The Tonkin snub-nosed monkey or Dollman's snub-nosed monkey is a slender-bodied arboreal Old World monkey endemic to northern Vietnam.

Two other conservation areas, the Du Gia Nature Reserve and Cham Chu Nature Reserve, were also instituted to protect the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey population and its habitat in those areas, yet hunting still occurs within these "protected" areas.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet

The Tonkin snub-nosed monkey's diet consists of a range of leaves, fruits, flowers and seeds. It is a largely folivorous species with its diet consisting mainly of leaves that come from bamboo and evergreen trees.

The Tonkin snub-nosed monkey has a strong jaw that allows it to chew the tough plant-based food that is part of its diet. The monkey also has a specialized digestive stomach that aids in the digestion of its plant-based diet.

In crisis

In 2008, fewer than 250 individuals were thought to exist, and the species was the subject of intense conservation effort. The main threats faced by these monkeys are habitat loss and hunting, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated the species as "critically endangered". Fauna & Flora International has been focused on making an impact to the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey population.

In order to protect the two largest known populations, located in Khau Ca in Vietnam and in a forest fragment near the border of China, Fauna & Flora International has been working with local communities to spread awareness about the species and monitor its habitat. Vietnamese authorities were also brought on to the plan to ensure that the Khau Ca forest was formally protected, with population size increasing and stabilizing since these efforts have been made.

CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.

Tonkin snub-nosed monkey 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 Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, Wikidata item Q18818. 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.