Is Malaysia's "mystery monkey" a hybrid between Nasalis larvatus and Trachypithecus cristatus? An assessment of photographs.

ABSTRACT: Interspecific hybridization in primates is common but hybridization between distantly related sympatric primate species is rarely observed in the wild. We present evidence for a possible hybridization event between Nasalis larvatus and Trachypithecus cristatus in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, Sabah, through assessment of photographs. We used a set of categorical characters and metric measurements to compare the putative hybrid with the likely parent species. Nonmetric comparison showed that this "mystery monkey" is intermediate in several characters. Measurements of limb proportions on photographs showed that the brachial, humerofemoral, and intermembral indexes are above 100 for N. larvatus and below 100 for T. cristatus on all photographs, whereas

SUBMITTER: Lhota S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9039274 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature