Golden-headed langur
| White-headed langur | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Primates |
| Family: | Cercopithecidae |
| Genus: | Trachypithecus |
| species group: | T. francoisi |
| Species: | T. poliocephalus |
| Binomial name | |
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Trachypithecus poliocephalus (Trouessart, 1911) |
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| White-headed Langur range | |
The white-headed langur (Trachypithecus poliocephalus) is a critically endangered langur. Two subspecies are recognized: T. p. poliocephalus in Cát Bà Island, Vietnam, and T. p. leucocephalus in Guangxi, China. The former (the nominate subspecies), often known as the golden-headed or Cat Ba langur, is among the rarest primates in the world, and possibly the rarest primate in Asia, with population size estimated at less than 70 individuals.
Both subspecies are overall blackish, but the crown, cheeks and neck are yellowish in T. p. poliocephalus, while they are white in T. p. leucocephalus, as suggested by its scientific name. According to the Cat Ba Langur Conservation Project, the The Cat Ba langur's skin is black and the pelage color is dark brown; head and shoulder are bright golden to yellowish-white. The tail is very long (ca. 85 cm) compared with the body size (ca. 50 cm). Babies are colored golden-orange; the pelage starts to change its color from about the fourth month on. Males and females look alike. Two adult females captured during translocation in 2012 weighted slightly more than 9 kilograms each.
The Cat Ba Langur, which lives on Cat Ba Island in Vietnam, is one of the 25 most endangered species. Conservation efforts are helping to prevent this, however, and have greatly increased their population since 2003, when there were only 40. Until recently, the Cat Ba Langur was not considered a species but rather a subspecies of other Langurs that live in the Vietnam jungles. Cat Ba Langurs are diurnal creatures and travel in groups of about four to eighteen animals. They prefer the steep limestone cliffs that make up most of Cat Ba Island. Most of the places that they are found are not accessible to humans by foot. Cat Ba Langurs spend around 66% of their time resting and the rest moving, foraging, and socializing, with the distribution changing between summer and winter. They eat less and rest more in the winter and the opposite in the summer.
The taxonomic position of the Chinese population is uncertain. It has been considered a partially albinistic population of the François' langur (T. francoisi), a subspecies of Francois' langur, a valid species (T. leucocephalus), or a subspecies, T. poliocephalus leucocephalus. Comparably, poliocephalus was considered a subspecies of Francois' langur until 1995.
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Wikipedia