The Arunachal macaque (''Macaca munzala'') is a macaque native to

Eastern Himalayas ] The Eastern Himalayas extend from eastern Nepal across Northeast India, Bhutan, the Tibet Autonomous Region to Yunnan in China and northern Myanmar. The climate of this region is influenced by the monsoon of South Asia from June to September. ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

, China and

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 ...

. It is listed as

Endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

. It was

scientifically described A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species that have be ...

in 2005. It is a relatively large brown

primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter including ...

with a comparatively short tail. Its species name comes from ''mun zala'', meaning deep forest (''mun'') monkey (''monkey''), as it is called by the

Monpa people The Monpa or Mönpa () is a major tribe of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India. The Tawang Monpas have a migration history from Changrelung. The Monpa are believed to be the only nomadic tribe in Northeast India – they are totally depend ...

of West Kameng and Tawang.

Discovery

Arunachal macaque on a camera trap in Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary

It was discovered as a new taxon in 1997 by the Indian primatologist

Anwaruddin Choudhury Anwaruddin Choudhury, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc., is an Indian naturalist, noted for his expertise on the fauna of North-East India. Choudhury is an ornithologist, mammalogist, artist, civil servant, photographer and author. He is recognized by many as a ...

, but he thought it to be a new subspecies of the

Tibetan macaque The Tibetan macaque (''Macaca thibetana''), also known as the Chinese stump-tailed macaque or Milne-Edwards' macaque, is a macaque species found from eastern Tibet east to Guangdong and north to Shaanxi in China. It has also been reported from ...

(''M. thibetana''). It was described as a new species in 2005 by a group of scientists from the

Nature Conservation Foundation The Nature Conservation Foundation is a non-governmental wildlife conservation and research organisation based in Mysore, India. They promote the use of science for wildlife conservation in India. History The Nature Conservation Foundation was ...

, India. It is the first species of macaque to have been discovered since 1903, when the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Pagai Island macaque The Pagai Island macaque (''Macaca pagensis''), also known as the Pagai macaque or ''Bokkoi'', is an Old World monkey endemic to the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra. It is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List due t ...

was discovered. This monkey was reported on the basis of a good quality photograph as the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of sever ...

. In 2011, some researchers suggested, on the basis of morphological variation within the

Assamese macaque The Assam macaque (''Macaca assamensis'') or Assamese macaque is a macaque of the Old World monkey family native to South and Southeast Asia. Since 2008, it has been listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List, as it is experiencing significan ...

, that it might be better treated as a subspecies. Subsequently, it was also discovered in Bhutan, where it was observed and photographed in the Trashi Yangshi area in 2006.

Description

The Arunachal macaque is compactly built and has a very dark face. It lives at high altitudes, between 2000 m and 3500 m above sea level, making it one of the highest-dwelling primates. It belongs to the ''M. sinica'' species-group of macaques, along with the

(''M. assamensis''), the Tibetan macaque, the

bonnet macaque The bonnet macaque (''Macaca radiata''), also known as zati,Chambers English Dictionary is a species of macaque endemic to southern India. Its distribution is limited by the Indian Ocean on three sides and the Godavari and Tapti Rivers, along wit ...

(''M. radiata'') and the

toque macaque The toque macaque (; ''Macaca sinica'') is a reddish-brown-coloured Old World monkey endemic to Sri Lanka, where it is known as the ''rilewa'' or ''rilawa'' ( Sinhala: රිළවා), (hence "rillow" in the ''Oxford English Dictionary''). Its n ...

(''M. sinica''). The Arunachal macaque is apparently physically similar to the Assam and Tibetan macaques, while genetically closely related to the bonnet macaque of southern India. This is probably the result of

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last com ...

, where organisms evolve similar physical features due to similar environmental selection pressure, while genetically they may have different origins. Kumar et al. (2008) and Sinha et al. (2006) report at least 569 individuals in thirty-five troops; thirty-two troops in Tawang and three troops in West Kameng. The monkey is severely persecuted in some parts of its known distribution by locals retaliating against crop raiding.

References

External links

Arunachal macaque information with photograph
{{DEFAULTSORT:macaque, Arunachal

Arunachal macaque The Arunachal macaque (''Macaca munzala'') is a macaque native to Eastern Himalayas of Bhutan, China and India. It is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. It was scientifically described in 2005. It is a relatively large brown pr ...

Primates of South Asia Fauna of Arunachal Pradesh

Discovery

Description

Further reading

References

External links