Source: CCTV news client
On April 22, the CCTV reporter learned from the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that during the recent scientific investigation of the biodiversity survey special "Hengduanshan South Priority Area" organized by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the proposed "Gaoligong mountain national park" in Yunnan Province, the scientific research team led by Jiang Xuelong, researcher of the veterinary ecology and evolution discipline group of the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Associate Researcher Li Xueyou, through the deployment of infrared cameras, photographed the white-cheeked macaca (macaca) in the Fugong area of Gaoligong Mountain, Yunnan Province leucogenys) video and photo, discovered new populations and new distributions of the white-cheeked macaque Gaoligong Mountain.
The white-cheeked macaque belongs to the primates (primates) monkey family (cercopithecidae) macaca, which was first discovered and reported by Chinese scientists in 2015 in Metuo, Tibet, and in recent years, the team of Jiang Xuelong and Jacky Li of the Discipline Group of Mammal Ecology and Evolution at the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences has also been found in the second scientific expedition on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in mirin, Bomi and Chayu in southeastern Tibet. The most prominent external feature of the white-cheeked macaque is that the cheeks and jaws are off-white or white and extend behind the ears. In the 2021 "List of Wild Animals under National Key Protection" newly promulgated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, the white-cheeked macaque is listed as a national level II key protected wild animal.
During the implementation of the project, the researchers of Kunming Institute of Zoology deployed 372 infrared cameras in the southern, central and northern sections of the Gaoligong Mountain area and 14 sample areas on its east-west slopes. After collating the recovery data, it was found that 17 of the 30 infrared cameras deployed along the coastal gradient in the Maji Township sample area of Fugong County, Nujiang Prefecture, Yunnan Province, recorded a new primate in the Gaoligong area, which was identified as a new species described in 2015( macaca leucogenys). During the year-long monitoring, the 17 infrared cameras captured a total of 702 photos and 4 videos of white-cheeked macaques, recording that the white-cheeked macaques were distributed at an altitude of between 1887 and 3041m, inhabiting the wet evergreen broad-leaved forest, deciduous broad-leaved forest and mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forest in Zhongshan.
△The picture shows a field work photo
The discovery of a new distribution of white-cheeked macaques in Gaoligong Mountain indicates that the distribution area of this species is not limited to the Brahmaputra Grand Canyon area in southeastern Tibet, but also in Gaoligong Mountain, Yunnan, suggesting that there may be other potential white-cheeked macaque populations in the vast area between Fugong in Yunnan and southeastern Tibet. The discovery of this species has increased the number of primates in the Gaoligong Mountain area to 10 species, becoming the most abundant area of primates in China, among which the Gaoligong white-browed gibbon (hoolock tianxing), the Rhinopithecus strykeri, and the Xiao's umurois (trachypithecus shortridgei) are only distributed in Gaoligong Mountain and its adjacent areas in China. It shows the important position of Gaoligong Mountain in the protection of primates and other wild animals in China. (CCTV reporter Wang Xi, Xu Xiaolong)