Three Southeast Asian Langurs Are Distinctly Different Species

The newly described East Sumatran banded langur (Presbytis percura) qualifies as critically endangered—it’s now one of the rarest and most imperiled primates. Photograph by Andie Ang New findings, published Scientific Reports, have identified that langurs found in Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, are actually three distinct species. By studying DNA found in the monkey's...

The Newly Discovered And Nearly Extinct Tapanuli Orangutan Species

Up to today, there were two known Orangutan species, both critically endangered. There are about 4,000 more Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) than Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) currently living in the Indonesian rainforest. A new orangutan family member, the Tapanuli orangutans (Pongo tapanuliensis), was described in a paper published Thursday in Current Biology. And with less than 800 individuals, that makes...

The first complete genetic map of the mountain gorilla was published several days ago. It is the most extensive genetic analysis of mountain gorillas ever conducted. The importance of it cannot be stressed due to the fact that mountain gorillas are critically endangered. With such small numbers, and the risk of extinction, they are burdened...

Orangutan Genome Sequenced

The orangutan genome has been sequenced and published in today's Nature. The paper, "Comparative and demographic analysis of orang-utan genomes," is open access for you to read for yourself. I'll be highlighting some of the high points in this post. Devin Locke, a structural geneticist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri,...

A New Malaria Pathogen Found In Chimpanzees From Gabon

Plasmodium falciparum is the protozoan parasite that causes malaria in humans and ultimately the death of 2-3 million people a year. If you didn't know, malaria is one of the most common infectious diseases and an enormous public health problem. Only one other malaria causing protozoan, a sister species of the P. falciparum parasite, P....

MonkeySNP: A Database of Non-Human Primate Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are 1 base pair differences in the genetic code when compared to same sequence from another individual. Many population geneticists who study human genetics compare and contrast SNPs between different populations to understand ancestry and genaology. A new database of non-human primate SNPs, MonkeySNP, has been recently released, and was announced...

Gorilla Genetic Diversification due to Ice Age and Climate Change

PNAS will soon publish a paper from Mike Bruford and colleagues who isolated DNA from gorilla hair and feces and ultimately came up with a conclusion that the modern genetic composition of gorilla populations varies across different parts of their current geographic range and that this variation may be tied to Ice Age climate change...

Bonobo Genome & Bonobo Conservation Efforts

It seems like the news hasn't gobbled up this news as adamantly as it did the news of the bonobo reserve in the Congo, but it is nonetheless newsworthy and crucial to the study of bonobos. The Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute put out a press release that they just acquired...

Alternative Splicing in Humans & Chimps

I could swear that in the past I had covered news that the minute genetic and massive phenotypic differences between humans and chimpanzees are due to the alternative splicing. But I can't seem to find the post at all... there maybe a slight chance I didn't post about it but I'm pretty sure I did...

Add DNApes to your bookmarks or RSS Feed

I just stumbled upon a new-to-me primatology blog that I wanted to share with you. The blog, DNApes, comes from Mimi Arandjelovic, a graduate student at the Max Planck power house of anthropology and is chock full of good posts. Mimi studies variation in male-transmitted Y-chromosome of gorillas, which is extremely important given that gorillas...