The black pika or silver pika (''Ochotona nigritia'') is a species of mammal in the family Ochotonidae. It was thought to be common to the

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

Province of China where it was first discovered in 2000, it is only known from four specimens. The validity of the species has been questioned, with some studies suggesting that the known specimens represent melanistic individuals of Forrest's pika (''Ochotona forresti''). Subsequently, in 2011, a

WWF-India World Wide Fund for Nature-India, better known by its abbreviation, WWF-India, has been devotedly working to protect and secure natural heritage and ecology for more than 50 years. It has an autonomous office, with the Secretariat based in New Del ...

team on an expedition to

West Kameng West Kameng (pronounced ) is a district of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India. It accounts for 8.86% of the total area of the state. The name is derived from the Kameng river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, that flows through the district ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

reported sighting two black pikas at an altitude of 13,000 ft in the Thembang Bapu community-conserved forest area. It is rarely found, one of the six pika species

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to central China, with no true population studies.

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Bibliography

* Mammals described in 2000 Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN {{lagomorph-stub