Mysterious discoveries
Since 2017, Nadine Ruppert, a primatologist at The University of Science Malaysia, has led a team to conduct an ecological survey in Borneo, when they found a mysterious little monkey, called mysterious, because as a primate expert, he could not identify which breed it was. The monkey was soon gone, and they had no time to record the photos and had to stop there, but by 2020, the monkey was rediscovered, and this time it even grew up.
This time Nadine Ruppert saw it very well and determined that the monkey had both monkey characteristics, and it must be a monkey "hybrid" because its nose and pronunciation resembled that of a female proboscis monkey, but it was not as slender, but the hair on its body and the gray tones on its face were more like silver langurs. At this time, it is taking care of the baby monkey, and it seems to be ready to breastfeed.
Mixed-race animals are not uncommon, but why is this mixed-race discovery called "surreal" by scientists?
Animal hybrids
It is not uncommon for very closely related species to cross in the wild to produce hybrids, and the same is true in monkeys, for example, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the hybridization of the northern pig-tailed macaque and the southern pig-tailed macaque subspecies in some parts of Thailand has become very commonplace, but the premise is that the relationship is very close, but the parents of the mysterious monkeys, the proboscis monkey and the silver langur monkey, are a little far away.
The hybrid monkey was found near the Kinabadang River in Borneo, Malaysia, where the distribution ranges of proboscis monkeys and silver langurs coincided. The differences between them are so large that they can be seen without the need to test genes.
Proboscis monkeys can probably imagine their appearance when they hear the name, they are pink, the signature nose is thin and long, the body hair is not too thick, showing brown; the body size can reach 76 cm, and the weight is about 20-24 kg, which is considered a medium-sized monkey.
The silver langur has a black face and a shorter, flattened nose. The body hair is mainly black, the average body length is only about 56 cm, and the weight is only about 7 kg. From the picture, you can see how big the difference is.
Hybrids from different species are not absent, but what is more unusual about this mysterious monkey is that most of the hybrids of different species are sterile and unable to produce offspring, but photos of this monkey show her swollen breasts, suggesting that her offspring are her own.
But scientists are concerned about this. Is this necessary? New species that can reproduce are born, and the diversity has not increased?
Why scientists are worried
The population composition of both species is a dominant male plus multiple females and their offspring, which means that the adult male monkeys will be driven away, and they will silently accumulate strength to either snatch away the other monkeys' group or develop one on their own. But because of the expansion of human society, these areas of male development power are becoming less and less.
For this reason, some male proboscis monkeys can only try to take over the silver langur population, and the male silver langur monkey weighs even one-third of the proboscis monkey, where to win? Therefore, the population of proboscis monkeys may continue to continue, but the silver langurs may disappear forever due to the problem of mixed blood, which is indeed very worrying.
postscript
The two species are now crammed into patches of remaining narrow riverbank forests surrounded by oil palm plantations, where they cannot live side by side and compete for limited food and mating opportunities, even if they are not the same species at all. The proportion of mestizos between proboscis monkeys and silver langurs is not known, or whether there is a chance to save them.
Sure enough, in the end, it is the pot of mankind again.