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Researchers were in for a sur­prise when they viewed footage from a remote and little-​explored area of south­east­ern Tibet. Within the more than 700 pho­tos cap­tured by their cam­era traps, they spot­ted sev­eral macaques with phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics that hadn’t been doc­u­mented before; namely, gen­i­tals that were shaped and coloured dif­fer­ently than those of other known macaques in the region. These dif­fer­ences may make these macaques a new species, the sci­en­tists write in their study first pub­lished online 25 March in the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Primatology.

Pho­tos of the newly described macaque, named the white-​cheeked macaque (Macaca leucogenys) by the authors of the study, were cap­tured in Modog county (some­times spelled “Medog”) in south­east­ern Tibet. Modog lies within the east­ern fringes of the Himalayan moun­tain range, bor­dered by India’s Arun­chal Pradesh state to the south. The region boasts a wide array of habi­tats, from trop­i­cal for­est to grass­land to bar­ren moun­tain­tops, and is regarded as a bio­di­ver­sity hotspot, but has not been exten­sively sur­veyed by scientists.

“It is an area where there’s been very lit­tle sci­en­tific explo­ration, partly because of polit­i­cal con­flicts,” Paul Gar­ber, exec­u­tive edi­tor of the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Pri­ma­tol­ogy, told New Sci­en­tist.

To help shed a lit­tle light on what lives within Modog’s forests, researchers from insti­tu­tions in China set up 31 cam­era traps in var­i­ous places through­out the county that col­lected images for about six months in 2013 and 2014. They also recorded the calls of macaques. They then com­pared the images and calls to known records, find­ing some sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences in sev­eral monkeys.

One of the most strik­ing dif­fer­ence was the shape and colour of the white-​lipped macaque’s penis and scro­tal sac. Unlike the four other macaque species in the area that have teardrop-​shaped penis tips, the tip of the white-​lipped macaque’s penis is rounded. Also, its scro­tum is dark where those of other macaque species are light. The white-​lipped macaque also has thicker, longer hair around its neck than the other species.

“Our pho­tos clearly showed some mor­pho­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences between the new species and other known species,” co-​author Peng-​Fei Fan, from Dali Uni­ver­sity, told New Sci­en­tist. Genetic analy­sis has yet to be done [to con­firm whether this is a new species or not — Moos].

For now, the entire known range of the white-​lipped macaque exists within a pro­tected area. How­ever, the authors sus­pect it may be found else­where in the region. They also cau­tion that local bush­meat hunt­ing and the pro­posed devel­op­ment of hydropower sta­tions in the area and sub­se­quent human pop­u­la­tion influx may threaten its habitat.

“More­over, the gov­ern­ment of China is plan­ning to con­struct cas­cade hydropower sta­tions in Modog includ­ing the locale where we pho­tographed… M. leucogenys,” the authors write. “Con­struc­tion of hydropower sta­tions would result in destroy­ing and flood­ing exten­sive areas of for­est along the rivers, the poten­tial habi­tat for white-​cheeked macaques. The immi­gra­tion of a large num­ber of peo­ple into the area to con­struct the hydropower sta­tions also will result in an increase in the bush­meat trade, defor­esta­tion, new roads, and the con­struc­tion of hous­ing for work­ers, all of which will have a neg­a­tive impact on white-​cheeked macaque conservation.”

“Dis­cov­ery of white-​cheeked macaques fur­ther high­lights the imme­di­ate need for bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion in this area along with more inten­sive sur­veys and stud­ies to pro­tect, man­age, and con­serve this impor­tant ecosys­tem,” the authors write.

(Source: Mongabay Report­ing Net­work news release, 10.04.2015)