Author: Fan Pengfei (Professor, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University)
Gibbon, as the name suggests, is an ape with a long arm. In ancient times, apes were the same as "hedgehogs" and "vipers", and it is recorded in the "Baopuzi" that "King Mu of Zhou marched south, and the army was exhausted, the gentleman was a hedgehog for a crane, and the little man was a worm for sand." This allusion was widely cited by later generations of literati when they painted apes, constructing the image of gibbons as gentlemen in ancient Chinese culture.
Based on these poems and songs and ancient local chronicles, scientists have been able to outline the historical distribution of gibbons in China. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the distribution of gibbons reached Qingyang in Gansu in the north, Nanchangjiang in the south, Zhenhai in Zhejiang in the east, Longchuan in Yunnan in the west, and was also widely distributed in the southeast coast, Guangdong, Hunan and other places. During the Qing Dynasty, with the large-scale population growth in China, the distribution area of gibbons retreated sharply, and by the beginning of the 20th century, only Gibbons were recorded in Fujian, Liangguang, Yunnan and Hainan. In the early days of the founding of New China, gibbons only existed in yunnan and hainan.
Skywalker gibbon Fan Pengfei photo/Guangming picture
At that time, there were four species of gibbons distributed in Yunnan, of which the Tianxing gibbon was widely distributed in 9 counties and cities west of the Nu River, but two surveys in 2008 and 2017 showed that the Tianxing gibbon was only distributed in Baoshan, Tengchong and Yingjiang counties and cities, with a population of less than 150. The white-palmed gibbon is found in Lincang, but surveys show that no one has heard its call since 2000. The northern white-cheeked gibbon was once found in Mengla, Jiangcheng and Luchun counties in Yunnan, but field surveys in 2008 and 2011 found no trace of it. The western black-crowned gibbon is currently the most widely distributed and the largest population of gibbons in China, with a population of nearly 1,000 in central Yunnan, but a very sparse population in western and southern Yunnan.
The Hainan gibbon is the only species of gibbon endemic to China. In the 1950s, it was distributed in 12 counties in Hainan, with populations of more than 2,000; by 2003, scientists had found only two groups of 13 gibbons in the Bawangling Reserve, making the Hainan gibbon the most endangered primate in the world. Fortunately, by the beginning of 2020, the population of Hainan gibbons had recovered to 5 groups of 30. In addition, the Eastern Black-crowned Gibbon, which is thought to have become extinct from China, was rediscovered in Guangxi in 2006 and the current population has recovered to 31 in 5 groups.
Gibbons, which have lived in this part of China for tens of millions of years, are now at the end of their rope and on the verge of extinction. The remaining populations are isolated in different mountain systems and endure further habitat loss and interference from various noises. Random effects from small populations can also cause newly grown gibbons to have a severely out-of-sex ratio, preventing them from finding a mate as adults. As a result, some gibbons had to mate with close relatives, resulting in an increase in offspring mortality. With the sharp decline of the gibbon population, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, people's understanding of the two animals, apes and monkeys, began to be confused. Today, most people don't know what an ape is, and the culture and knowledge of gibbons in history has faded.
Today, in Yingjiang and Tengchong, Yunnan, a section of the Lisu people still have a tradition of protecting gibbons. They believed that gibbons were spiritual, singing and predicting the weather, were spirits of all things, and were closely related to their ancestors. The Lisu people here never kill gibbons, but actively protect them. Thanks to this, nearly half of China's Tianxing gibbon population lives in private forests or collective forests around the Lisu villages. However, in some neighboring multi-ethnic areas, gibbons are more likely to become extinct because the cultural traditions protected by gibbons are not passed on, and the endangerment further leads to the loss of traditional culture and the difficulty of recovering populations, thus falling into a vicious circle. In contrast, the cultural heritage of the Lisu people actively promoting traditions and protecting wild animals is extremely precious.
Gibbons not only have literary and aesthetic value, but also have important ecological and scientific value. It is an efficient seed propagator. In the Wuliang Mountains of central Yunnan, the western black-crowned gibbon can spread seeds of at least 27 plant species. In terms of evolutionary relationships, gibbons are the closest sister group of humans (humans and great apes, i.e., various orangutans) with a range of traits that large apes do not possess. Among the living great apes, gibbons have the highest degree of skeletal erection, the strongest ability to walk upright on two feet, the most developed sound communication, and the social system is most similar to that of humans. Therefore, studying gibbons can help us better understand the adaptation and evolution of humans in the process from arboreal to ground-dwelling, help us find clues to the evolution of human language and music, and help us better understand the evolution of human marriage systems. In addition, gibbon brains are in a transitional stage of evolution from monkey brains to ape brains and human brains, and studying gibbon brain structure and cognitive abilities can give us a better understanding of brain evolution. Regrettably, however, over the past 30 years, more and more researchers have begun to focus on the study and conservation of large apes, while gibbons have long been neglected.
In recent years, in order to protect China's last gibbon, China has set up nature reserves at all levels. Currently, about 80 percent of gibbons live in protected areas. With the improvement of the management level of protected areas, poaching and deforestation have been controlled, but the negative impacts of small populations have not been effectively addressed. Human activity has completely changed the natural world, gibbons who rely heavily on forest life can not cross villages and roads, perhaps only with the help of humans, these populations isolated from each other gibbons can find suitable mates and achieve life reproduction.
Northern white-cheeked gibbon Fan Pengfei photo/Guangming picture
The fate of the Chinese gibbon is in the hands of our generation. If we pay attention to it and act immediately, we can not only protect the existing gibbons, but also possibly rebuild a population of northern white-cheeked gibbons through rewilding and repatriation in the near future, so that future generations still have the opportunity to hear the beautiful songs of gibbons and see the agile figure of gibbons on the land of Shenzhou. May a thousand mountains be evergreen, and the voice of the apes always chirp.