Snub-nosed monkey | Endangered Primate Species (2024)

snub-nosed monkey, (genus Rhinopithecus), any of four species of large and unusual leaf monkeys (see langur) found in highland forests of central China and northern Vietnam. They have a broad, short face with wide-set slanting eyes and a short, flat nose with forward-facing nostrils.

The golden snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana) lives in the coniferous montane forests of central China at elevations of 1,800–2,700 metres (6,000–9,000 feet), where the temperature drops below freezing in winter and rises only to about 25 °C (77 °F) in summer. They have rich golden brown to golden red fur, and the tail is about the same length as the body. Males have a long mantle of black and golden hairs on the back. Their bodies measure about 62 cm (24 inches) long, and they weigh 16–17 kg (35–37 pounds). Females are slightly smaller, weighing only about 9–10 kg. The trefoil-shaped face of the golden snub-nosed monkey is pale blue, and adult males develop strange red swellings at the corners of the mouth. The scientific name refers to Roxellana, consort of the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, who had reddish gold hair and, by some accounts, a snub nose.

The black snub-nosed monkey (R. bieti) is black above and white below, with a greenish face and a forward-curling tuft of hair on the crown of the head. It is longer-bodied and shorter-tailed than the golden species but weighs about the same. Found only along the divide between the Yangtze and Mekong rivers in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, it lives at elevations up to 4,000 metres in mainly coniferous forests, which are snow-covered for much of the year. The gray snub-nosed monkey (R. brelichi) is somewhat smaller, long-tailed, and dark gray with a red patch on the crown and a white patch between the shoulders. It lives only on Mount Fanjing in southern China (Guizhou province) at about 1,500 metres.

The Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (R. avunculus) is the smallest and has a long tail and long, slender fingers and toes. It is black above and strikingly white below and around the face, with the face itself being dark greenish with prominent brick-red lips. This species is confined to the tropical forests of the Na Hang district of northern Vietnam.

The Tonkin species has been recorded only in small groups of up to 30, but this may be because it so rare that its population is scattered and fragmented. The three Chinese species, however, live in troops up to 500 strong and thus form the largest social groups of any nonhuman primate. These troops divide at times into small groups consisting of one adult male and three to five adult females and their young. This may improve foraging success in their highly seasonal montane environments. All snub-nosed monkeys are leaf eaters, but their diet also includes flowers, fruits, and seeds. The two large high-mountain species (the golden and the black) also eat lichens and often travel or forage on the ground.

In 2010 another species was added to the genus, the so-called Myanmar snub-nosed monkey (R. strykeri); the species was discovered in northern Myanmar. It is black with white regions on its ear tufts, chin, and perineal area. The species has an estimated population of only a few hundred individuals, and it appears to be extremely susceptible to habitat loss due to logging, habitat degradation from road construction, and hunting. For those reasons, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the species as critically endangered on the organization’s Red List of Threatened Species.

There are some 8,000 to 10,000 golden snub-nosed monkeys in the wild, and they are not in immediate danger of extinction. The black and gray species, however, number fewer than 1,500 each; the gray is protected, but the black is hunted, and its habitat is being deforested to provide cattle pasture. The Tonkin is one of the most-endangered primates in the world, having little effective protection and a total population below 250.

Snub-nosed monkeys are closely related to the douc and were formerly classified in the same genus. Langurs and other leaf monkeys are primates belonging to the Old World monkey family, Cercopithecidae.