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Order : PRIMATES
Family : Cercopithecidae
Species : Presbytis percura
Head-body length : up to 59 cm ?
Tail length : up to 76 cm ?
Weight : maximum approx. 7.5 kg ?
Presbytis percura
(East Sumatran Banded Langur) is a critically endangered primate from the
lowlands of Riau Province on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. It was formerly
considered a subspecies of Presbytis
femoralis (Raffles' Banded Langur, Banded Leaf Monkey) but DNA
sequencing has resurrected it as a valid, unique species (Ang et al,
2020).
This species occurs in fragmented, unprotected forests and its survival is
at risk due to continuing lowland forest loss and forest degradation due to
deliberate burning. In addition, individuals are sometimes killed after
entering fruit orchards. (Rizaldi et al, 2019).
This shy leaf monkey is mainly blackish, with a dark grey head. The inner
side of each limb, the underside of the chin and parts of the chest are
pale. The tail is mainly black.
IUCN (Rizaldi et al, 2021) summarise its habitat use as "mixed mangrove, primary freshwater,
riverbank, primary lowland logged, scrub-grassland riverbank, and secondary
riverbank habitats". It is also known to enter rubber plantations and
feed on leaves and seeds of Hevea brasiliensis (see Fig 2).
A conservation action plan is urgently needed for this largely unstudied
primate.
Figs 1 to 3 : Three examples from rubber plantations in Riau
Province. The langur in Figure 2 is holding a seed case of Hevea
brasiliensis in its mouth. Photos thanks to Andie Ang.
References :
Ang, A., Roesma, D.I., Nijman, V., Meier, R., Srivathsan, A. and
Rizaldi. 2020. Faecal DNA to the rescue: Shotgun sequencing of
non-invasive samples reveals two subspecies of Southeast Asian primates
to be Critically Endangered species. Scientific Reports 10: 9396.
Rizaldi, Ang, A., Kurnia, I., Prasetio, I., Nijman, V., Setiawan, A.
& Boonratana, R. 2021. Presbytis percura. The IUCN Red List of
Threatened Species 2021: e.T39805A205841390.
Rizaldi, Ilham, K., Prasetio, I., Lee, Z.H., Jabbar, S. and Ang, A.
2019. Preliminary study on the distribution and conservation status of
the East Sumatran banded langur Presbytis femoralis percura in
Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Asian Primates Journal 8(1): 25-36.
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