White-cheeked macaque

The white-cheeked macaque (Macaca leucogenys) is a monkey of the genus Macaca known only from Medog County in southeastern Tibet and from Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India. It lives in forest, from tropical forest at about 1,400 meters through evergreen broad-leaved forest up to roughly 2,400 meters and mixed broadleaf and conifer forest near 2,700 meters. It was formally described in 2015 by the Chinese primatologists Cheng Li, Chao Zhao and Peng-Fei Fan after camera trap footage in Tibet showed that animals long taken for Assam macaques differ in whisker length, neck hair and the shape of the genitalia. Adults grow long white whiskers as they mature, giving the face a rounded look, and the short tail carries no hair along its length. The species is thought to live in small groups of several males and females and gives a loud, high alarm call before climbing trees when it detects people. Its conservation status has not been assessed, but poaching, deforestation and development of its habitat are likely threats. It is the most recently described of the twenty-three extant macaque species.