Eastern Black Crested Gibbon

Taxobox
name = Eastern Black Crested Gibbon
status = CR
status_system = iucn3.1
trend = unknown
status_ref = IUCN2006 | assessors = Geissmann, T. | year = 2003 | title = Nomascus nasutus | id = 41641 | downloaded = 2006-11-21]
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Primates
familia = Hylobatidae
genus = "Nomascus"
species = "N. nasutus"
binomial = "Nomascus nasutus"
binomial_authority = (Kunkel d'Herculais, 1884)
subdivision_ranks = Subspecies
subdivision=
*"Nomascus nasutus nasutus"
*"Nomascus nasutus hainanus"

The Eastern Black Crested Gibbon ("Nomascus nasutus") is a species of gibbon that was once widespread in China and Vietnam. There are 2 subspecies.

It became extinct on the Chinese mainland in the 1950s; and now roughly only 20 gibbons of the subspecies "Nomascus nasutus hainanus" (Hainan Black Crested Gibbon) survive on Hainan Island and around 26 individuals of the subspecies "Nomascus nasutus nasutus" (Cao Vit Black Crested Gibbon) were rediscovered in 2002 in the Trung Khanh district of Cao Bang Province in northeast Vietnam, after last being seen in the 1960s. [Mootnick, A. R., Rylands, A. B. and Konstant, W. R. 2005. Hainan Black-crested Gibbon, Nomascus nasutus hainanus (Thomas, 1892). In: Primates in Peril: The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates 2004-2006, R. A. Mittermeier, C. Valladares-Pádua, A. B. Rylands, A. A. Eudey, T. M. Butynski, J. U. Ganzhorn, R. Kormos, J. M. Aguiar and S. Walker (eds.), pp.30-31. Report to IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group (PSG), International Primatological Society (IPS) and Conservation International (CI), Washington, DC.]

The Eastern Black Crested Gibbon is the rarest and most critically endangered primate in the world. Its demise has come from deforestation of its habitat, encroachment, and poaching.

References