List of Endangered Old World Monkeys
There are 122 species of old world monkeys, the monkeys native to Asia and Africa. Of these, the 41 monkey species in the lists below are classified as endangered.
For some types of monkeys almost all species are endangered.
In Africa, red colobus monkeys are particularly in trouble, with five out of the seven species there endangered.
Asia's endangered monkeys include one-third of the macaque species, all three species of the douc langurs and all four species of snub-nosed monkeys.
The genus most heavily represented on the lists, though, is Trachypithecus. These are the langurs, lutungs and leaf-monkeys of southern Asia, where nine of the 16 species are endangered.
Determinations of whether monkeys are endangered come from the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which maintains the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The organization is an internationally recognized authority on the status of species around the world.
The Red List uses categories to indicate how severely endangered an animal species is. Monkeys get placed into categories of "Critically Endangered" and "Endangered" based on how rapidly their population has declined, how small an area they now occupy, how many individuals remain, or the likelihood they'll soon become extinct.
Besides the monkeys listed here, the Red List places in the "Vulnerable" category another 31 old world species which have declined in number, but less drastically than the endangered monkeys. The three categories together make up the "Threatened" species. In total, 72 species (59 percent) of old world monkeys are threatened.
Critically Endangered Monkeys in Asia and Africa
The dozen critically endangered species listed below are the old world monkeys that now live closest to the brink of becoming extinct in the wild. They have either:
- a population decline of at least 80 percent within ten years or three generations,
- fragmented or unstable populations over an area of less than 100 square kilometres (39 square miles),
- numbers totalling less than 50 mature individuals, or
- at least a 50 percent probability of becoming extinct in the wild within ten years or three generations.
| Common Name | Scientific Name | Countries |
|---|---|---|
| Dryad Monkey | Cercopithecus dryas | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| Celebes Crested Macaque | Macaca nigra | Indonesia |
| Pagai Island Macaque | Macaca pagensis | Indonesia |
| Sarawak Surili | Presbytis chrysomelas | Indonesia, Malaysia |
| Pennant's Red Colobus | Procolobus pennantii | Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria |
| Preuss's Red Colobus | Procolobus preussi | Cameroon, Nigeria |
| Grey-shanked Douc Langur | Pygathrix cinerea | Vietnam |
| Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey | Rhinopithecus avunculus | Vietnam |
| Kipunji | Rungwecebus kipunji | Tanzania |
| Pig-tailed Langur | Simias concolor | Indonesia |
| Delacour's Langur | Trachypithecus delacouri | Vietnam |
| White-headed Langur | Trachypithecus poliocephalus | China, Vietnam |
Endangered Monkeys in Asia and Africa
Endangered monkeys are not as bad off as those that are critically endangered, but they still have come alarmingly close to extinction. These old world monkeys have either:
- a population decline of at least 50 percent within ten years or three generations,
- fragmented or unstable populations over an area of less than 5000 square kilometres (1930 square miles),
- numbers totalling less than 250 mature individuals, or
- at least a 20 percent probability of becoming extinct in the wild within 20 years or five generations.
| Common Name | Scientific Name | Countries |
|---|---|---|
| Tana River Crested Mangabey | Cercocebus galeritus | Kenya |
| Sanje Mangabey | Cercocebus sanjei | Tanzania |
| Preuss's Monkey | Cercopithecus preussi | Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria |
| Moor Macaque | Macaca maura | Indonesia |
| Arunachal Macaque | Macaca munzala | Bhutan, China, India |
| Lion-tailed Macaque | Macaca silenus | India |
| Toque Macaque | Macaca sinica | Sri Lanka |
| Barbary Macaque | Macaca sylvanus | Algeria, Morocco (introduced to Gibraltar) |
| Drill | Mandrillus leucophaeus | Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria |
| Proboscis Monkey | Nasalis larvatus | Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia |
| Javan Surili | Presbytis comata | Indonesia |
| Sumatran Surili | Presbytis melalophos | Indonesia |
| Mentawai Langur | Presbytis potenziani | Indonesia |
| West African Red Colobus | Procolobus badius | C�te d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone |
| Udzungwa Red Colobus | Procolobus gordonorum | Tanzania |
| Zanzibar Red Colobus | Procolobus kirkii | Tanzania |
| Red-shanked Douc Langur | Pygathrix nemaeus | Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam |
| Black-shanked Douc Langur | Pygathrix nigripes | Cambodia, Vietnam |
| Black Snub-nosed Monkey | Rhinopithecus bieti | China |
| Grey Snub-nosed Monkey | Rhinopithecus brelichi | China |
| Golden Snub-nosed Monkey | Rhinopithecus roxellana | China |
| Kashmir Gray Langur | Semnopithecus ajax | Nepal |
| François's Langur | Trachypithecus francoisi | China, Vietnam |
| Gee's Golden Langur | Trachypithecus geei | Bhutan, India |
| Indochinese Lutung | Trachypithecus germaini | Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam |
| Hatinh Langur | Trachypithecus hatinhensis | Laos, Vietnam |
| Phayre's Leaf-monkey | Trachypithecus phayrei | Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam |
| Shortridge's Langur | Trachypithecus shortridgei | China, Myanmar |
| Purple-faced Langur | Trachypithecus vetulus | Sri Lanka |
Reference
IUCN. 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.2.