Primates in Peril: The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates 2016-2018

About this book

This report was drawn up during an open meeting held during the XXVI Congress of the International Primatological Society (IPS), Chicago, 22 August 2016.

Here the IUCN reports on the ninth iteration of the biennial listing of a consensus of the 25 primate species considered to be among the most endangered worldwide and the most in need of conservation measures.

The 2016–2018 list of the world’s 25 most endangered primates has five species from Africa, six from Madagascar, nine from Asia, and five from the Neotropics. Madagascar tops the list with six species. Indonesia has four, Brazil, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Panama, Vietnam, and possibly Nigeria have two, and Benin, Bhutan, China, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Togo each have one.

The changes made in this list compared to the previous iteration (2014–2016) were not because the situation of the twelve species that were dropped has improved, although for some species, such as, for example, Lepilemur septentrionalis, better protection measures are now in place. By making these changes the editors intend rather to highlight other, closely related species enduring equally bleak prospects for their future survival.

Twelve of the primates were not on the previous (2014–2016) list. Ten of them are listed among the world’s most endangered primates for the frst time. The Niger Delta red colobus and Bornean orangutan had already been on previous iterations, but were subsequently removed in favour of other highly threatened species. The 2016–2018 list contains two members each of the genera Trachypithecus and Ateles, thus particularly highlighting the severe threats that large-bodied primates are facing in all of the world’s primate habitat regions.

During the discussion of the 2016–2018 list at the XXVI Congress of IPS in Chicago in 2016, a number of other highly threatened primate species were considered for inclusion. For all of these, the situation in the wild is as precarious as it is for those that fnally made it on the list.

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