Extinction Claims Unique Chinese Subspecies of Ape

After two weeks of recent field work, the 14 member team of scientists assembled by anthropologists from Zurich University concluded that as a result of continued forest destruction, fragmentation and deterioration as well as hunting, this gibbon species no longer exists in Yunnan.

The scientific team surveyed all Chinese forests that ever had reported supporting white-handed gibbons at any time during the last 20 years, but no trace of the animals was found.

White-handed gibbon mother and infant (Photo courtesy University of Zurich)

The team includes scientists who are members of the Gibbon Conservation Alliance based at Zurich University, and the Kunming Institute of Zoology, as well as staff members of the Nangunhe National Nature Reserve

"This loss is particularly tragic," says anthropologist Thomas Geissmann, "because the extinct Chinese population was described as a distinct subspecies, the so-called Yunnan white-handed gibbon."

This subspecies, Hylobates lar yunnanensis, is not known from any other place.

The white-handed gibbon, like the gorilla, chimpanzee and orangutan, is an ape, not a monkey. Unlike monkey species, gibbons have no tail, assume an upright posture and have a more highly developed brain.

Geissmann now hopes that the Yunnan white-handed gibbon subspecies may have survived in neighboring Myanmar, but so far, he has no evidence of this.

"The extinction of the Chinese white-handed gibbon is an urgent alarm signal, because several other ape species in China are also endangered by extinction," says Geissmann.

For instance, the white-cheeked crested gibbon, Nomascus leucogenys, has not been sighted in China since the 1980s.

There are fewer than 50 individuals of the Cao-Vit crested gibbon, Nomascus nasutus, remaining. They are found in China's Guangxi province and Cao Bang province in Vietnam.

The most endangered remaining gibbon is the Hainan crested gibbon, Nomascus hainanus, on the south Chinese island of Hainan. Fewer than 20 individuals are left in the wild.

The Chinese-Swiss team of scientists warns that the loss of the Yunnan white-handed gibbons may be the beginning of an unprecedented wave of extinctions which threatens to terminate the existence of most Chinese ape species.

Geissmann says, "We hope that our research results will alarm the Chinese government as well as international conservation agencies and encourage them to initiate immediate efforts to save China's last surviving apes."

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