A monkey with eerie white circles around its eyes is among 224 new species included in the latest World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) update on the Greater Mekong region.
The conservation group’s report, published this Wednesday (01.26.2022), highlights the need to protect the rich biodiversity and habitats of the region, which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
In its annual report, which it suspended last year due to the pandemic, the environmental group highlights the discovery of a new mammal, 35 reptiles, 17 amphibians, 16 fish and 155 plants and trees in this area of great biodiversity that includes Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
“Unsustainable trade in wildlife”
“The Greater Mekong region is still on the front line for (species) discovery, but these findings highlight that we are losing and destroying natural habitat, and an unsustainable trade in wild species,” WWF stresses, noting that 3,000 new species have been found in the region since 1997.
Some of these species could already find their survival threatened, among them the aforementioned new species of monkey found in the central plain of Burma, of which between 200-250 specimens could remain spread over four remote locations, ecologists point out.
the stern langur
This mammal, named the Popa langur in reference to the extinct volcano on Mount Popa, is also threatened by hunting and deforestation by the logging industry and to expand agricultural crops.
The first evidence of this species of mammal was not found in the wild but among the bones collected more than a century ago and found in the Natural History Museum of Great Britain.
Genetic analysis to compare the recently collected bones with the museum specimens indicated that both samples match.
Two main distinguishing features of this new specimen, captured thanks to camera traps placed in 2018, are the wide white rings around the eyes and the forward-pointing whiskers.
“We have to work together and quickly to conserve the wildlife and habitat that make this region unique, to ensure that new species continue to be discovered,” the environmental group said.
FEW (EFE, AP)