Abstract
An isolated population of rhesus monkeys living in Xinglung County, north of Beijing (latitude 40⪤gree N), was a natural population at the northernmost range of the species in Asia. Rhesus had been reported there at the end of the last century, based on a few specimens, but were not well known by zoologists until the beginning of the 1960s. The population remained approximately 50–60 individuals in the 1960s but then declined to only 4 or 5 monkeys about 5 years ago. It has been confirmed by local hunters and two recent field trips that the population is now probably extinct. As a result, the northern extent of the remaining natural range of the rhesus macaque in Asia has dropped 650 km southward to the Jiyuan Nature Reserve on the border of Hunan and Shanxi provinces, just north of the Yellow River.
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Yongzu, Z., Guogiang, Q., Yonglei, L. et al. Extinction of rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatto) in Xinglung, North China. Int J Primatol 10, 375–381 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02737423
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02737423