By Rebecca Morelle Science
Correspondent, BBC News
8 hours ago
A gibbon living in the tropical
forests of south west China is a new species of primate, scientists have
concluded.
The animal has been studied for
some time, but new research confirms it is different from all other gibbons.
It has been named the Skywalker
hoolock gibbon - partly because the Chinese characters of its scientific name
mean "Heaven's movement" but also because the scientists are fans of
Star Wars.
The study is published in the American
Journal of Primatology.
Dr Sam Turvey, from the
Zoological Society of London, who was part of the team studying the apes, told
BBC News: "In this area, so many species have declined or gone extinct
because of habitat loss, hunting and general human overpopulation.
"So it's an absolute
privilege to see something as special and as rare as a gibbon in a canopy in a
Chinese rainforest, and especially when it turns out that the gibbons are
actually a new species previously unrecognised by science."
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