The Cao Vit gibbon is a species found on the border of Vietnam and China. Only thought to number 74 in the wild (and having suffered a loss of 38% of the population in recent years, this is a little known and critically endangered species. Once thought to be a subspecies of the Hainan black crested gibbon, it was found to be far to distinct for this.
Its name is an attempt at mimicking its name.
While in the past it has been hunted, and could be the reason that the population is so low, its biggest threats at the current time, include loss of habitat, and habitat degradation for firewood.
This species was already only thought to have a wild population of 120, however the population has been found to have fallen to just 74 (a 38% reduction).
Before and after (after being above) image of a river in the Amazon rainforest
Why is this a problem? Well there are several issues that should concern everyone. The natural end of the line, is for the complete loss of the Amazon rainforest. There is much fear that it may be another tipping point, and that therefore, once the rainforest starts failing, it would accelerate the loss of the rest.
With an estimated historical habitat of this species 95% destroyed already, only leaving a small patch of rainforest with an estimated 800 Tapanuli orangutan, it would seem obvious that this small patch of rainforest should be protected, no matter what. however this opinion is not shared by everyone.
Having said this, thankfully, it is shared by an increasing number of organisations, and at current count, a total of 29 financiers have excluded Jardines and all subsidies from financing (according to the Financial Exclusions Tracker).
What is worse, is that the Martabe mining concession lies in a portion of the orangutan habitat called the Batang Toru forest, which has the largest orangutan population, and not only is this the area that has the highest chance of survival, but without this block of orangutan population, the future of the whole species is put at risk.
While this is a great move, one does wonder why it took 7 years to come to this decision. We have known about the Tapanuli Orangutan since 2017, and how precarious its survival is.
At the current time, there is an effort to expand the mine. While owners of the mine have said initially, this would just mean boreholes which do not disturb to too great a degree, recent studies have shown a correlation between this type of drilling and a reduction in Orangutan density, which proves these former assumptions to be incorrect.
It seems obvious that this area needs protecting, but perhaps for some people the earning potential is too great.
Javan rhino are on the brink of extinction! Currently, the number of surviving rhino is thought to be around 70. This depleted population is largely to do with poaching, as these animals do not do badly in the wild.
Just bare in mind, with the video above, if you have problems with heights, the view when you start the video above will not be pleasant.
So, if you are a species who spends its days moving around on cliffs, which most species would spend their lives avoiding often even if the alternative choice is death, clearly it is extreme. The fact of the matter, is that heights are not the only threat that animals like mountain goats face when living in the mountains: Bears, wolves, eagles, and wolverines and even animals like snow leopards that live in the mountains, will get the majority of their calories from meat. Animals like mountain goats, along with various deer species, will be the mainstay of these predators in the mountains.
What is, unfortunately a fact, is that mountain goats do not fly. As such they need to be able to see the cliff, so as to be able to step carefully and not loose their footing.Â
This means that goats cannot become nocturnal, as without enough light, they will fall to their deaths. As such mountain goats tend to be crepuscular – active in the early morning and late evening
 However, this move has already happened, so all that this move might do, is reduce the length of time that mountain goats can remain active, which is likely to lead to starvation amongst much of the wild population.
Gigantopithecus blacki – the likely largest species of great ape ever to have existed
Thought to have gone extinct 295,000 and 215,000 years ago, having first appeared around 2 million years ago. Rather than being caused by our ancestors, it unfortunately became extinct as a result of the climate became more seasonal and the plant-eating primate struggled to adapt to changing vegetation.
Might this be a for-shadow for the extinction of the rest of the great apes?
The largest ever primate Gigantopithecus blacki went extinct at a time when Asian great apes were thriving, and its demise has long been a considered a mystery. A massive regional study of 22 caves in southern China explores a species on the brink of extinction between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago. As the environment became more seasonal, forest plant communities changed Primates such as orangutans adapted their eating habits and behaviors in response but G. blacki showed signs of stress, struggled to adapt and their numbers dwindled.
This species was 3m (10 feet) tall, it was around twice the weight of the the largest gorillas. It was first identified around 100 years ago, from fossilized teeth (around 2000 have been found) sold as dragon bones. Around (700,000 or) 600,000 years ago we start to see large environmental changes and during that period we see a decline in the availability of fruit.
As a result Giganto (ate) less nutritious fall-back foods. We’ve got evidence from looking at the teeth structure, Westaway added. Pits and scratches on the teeth suggest it was eating really fibrous food such as bark and twigs from the forest floor.
Funnily enough, they are not thought to have ever lived in caves, but instead had their remains carried there.
As there are no, non-cranial fossils (i.e. any fossils of any part of this species below the neck) , it’s hard to know exactly what Gigantopithecus would have looked like. Its upper molars are 57.8% larger than a gorilla’s and the lower molars are 33% larger, suggesting its body weight would have been 200 to 300 kilograms.
Given its size, it is thought to have long abandoned the tree-tops, though given its closest living relative is the Bornean Orangutan, of which, older males are often spending more time on the ground given their large weight as well.
There are fossils of homo erectus from nearby, from around 800,000 years ago, suggesting that we might well have lived alongside them. How happy or harmonious this relationship is, we cannot know. Unfortunately, given recent history, it is quite likely that directly or indirectly we had a hand in this species extinction, given our impact on almost all other species that we know.
In a recent discovery, Skywalker gibbons have been found in areas of Northeastern Myanmar, where they have found around 44 groups of this primate. Given that the 150 was thought to be made up of 11 solitary and 32 groups, we can say that roughly speaking a group consists of 4 individuals. If that is true, then this incredibly rare species, has just had its numbers expanded by 133.3% in one go. What is more, is that this part of Myanmar has many other species of gibbon, and it is quite possible that there are more skywalker gibbons as yet unidentified.
This also expands its range beyond the forests of China, well into Myanmar.
It should be noted that this new community lives in forests that have threats of their own.
Oddly, despite gibbons habits of singing loudly at the start of the day, it is only recently that acoustic surveys were used for the Skywalker gibbon. There are 20 wild species of gibbon, and their songs are usually easy to tell apart. This yielded this huge increase in the population of the Skywalker gibbon.
It would appear that the new home of the Skywalker gibbon is little more secure than the old one, suggesting a bigger fight to protect the area which it lives in.
This pod of Orca have been trapped, with only this small opening to breathe from. Unlike other marine mammals, orca generally stay close to the surface, and breathe regularly, which can make this a death trap.
While Orca have been timed, holding their breathe for 15 minutes, they usually take shallow dives of up to a minute, or deeper dives lasting 3-4 minutes. While Orca can hit speeds of almost 30 miles per hour, this is usually only over short distances, and they could not sustain this for long under water – especially without being able to take a breathe.
Thankfully, in the last few hours, these animals have managed to get free.
Above is a fascinating video about a photographers journey to try to see this rhinos in the wild (spoiler alert, it was a success, as you can see from the thumbnail). The problem is that despite this video being from 8 years ago, the Javan rhino has not recovered a great deal in the intervening years.
So, when I say it has not recovered much in those years, what do I mean? Well in 2015 the Javan rhino population was estimated at 72, it is now thought to number 76.
A new study has suggested a number of idaes that might accelerate the recovery of this rhino.
These are captive breeding, and forest clearance to give more areas for the rhino to feed.
While the latter may well have some merit, the former may not. It should also be noted that currently 13 of the rhino show signs of inbreeding. So why not bring some of the remaining rhino into captivity, in order to breed? This has not proved highly successful in the past, and indeed often a number of individuals die in the early stages. With a population of just 76 individuals, we do not have spare rhino to gamble with.
Like the Sumatran rhino, the small population left in Java is a relict of a species which roamed a great area of Asia, until not that long ago. If we can save this Javan population there is a potential in the future to reintroduce them to a wide variety of countries in this part of Asia, both mainland and islands.
This is a post origially put out 2 years ago, however, I found the video had not worked, so here it is again.
There are still sizable areas of protected land in Java, and in 2017 a warden took the below photo.
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Now it is hard to see it clearly, but to me I think it looks more like a leopard unfortunately
Now I am unsure about this picture but would be pleasantly pleased to be proved wrong.
If not, the Javan tiger is very similar to the Sumatran tiger. As such, with a recovery in the wild Sumatran population if a reserve is not suffering poaching, it would be possible to bring the tiger back to Java.
There has been no more sightings of this animal, which suggests that this sighting cannot have been real, but who knows.
It should be noted, that while rangers decided that it must be showing a leopard, this is still exciting. This is because, while a leopard is not a species declared extinct 48 years ago, the Javan Leopard is a species that is highly threatened. The current estimate of the population of this leopard species is between 188-571, most likely around 250 leopards is an accurate figure.
The video below is a clip filmed of the Javan leopard
