New Monkey species ‘white-cheeked macaque’ found in Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh, known for its wide variety of fauna, came to light with a new species of monkeys called white-cheeked macaque (Macaca leucogenys), which was photographed in Anjaw district. The new species was found in southeastern Tibet last year Dr Li Cheng and his group from Modog of Tibet in China. In India, the discovery of the new species was found by the team comprising Dr Ranjan Kumar Das, Udayan Borthakur and Dr Dilip Chetry, said a news report in Assam Tribune. The species differs from others such as Rhesus macaque, Arunachal macaque, Tibetan macaque and Assamese macaque with its special characteristics like uniform dorsal hair pattern, hairy ventral pelage, relative hairless short tail, prominent pale to white side, and chin-whiskers creating a white cheek and a round facial appearance, dark facial skin on the muzzle, long and thick hair on its neck, and round rather than arrow-shaped male genitalia. “The macaques we observed and photographed in Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh are white-cheeked macaque,” said Dr Dilip Chetry, primatologist and the head of Primatology read more