Black-and-white snub-nosed monkey

The black-and-white snub-nosed monkey, Rhinopithecus bieti, also called the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, is a large black and white primate that lives only in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan and neighboring regions, in coniferous and deciduous mountain forests. Only 17 groups with a total of fewer than 1,700 animals survive, each group holding a territory of 20 to 135 square kilometres, and it is considered endangered and threatened by habitat loss. It lives at the highest altitude of any known non-human primate, up to 4,700 m, helped by a mutation that increases resistance to oxygen deprivation. Its diet is mainly lichen, with bamboo leaves and seasonal plants such as rhododendron nectar. Females weigh about 9 kg and males about 14 kg. It was almost unknown until the 1990s, and no zoo outside China has ever kept it.