First record of the Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey Lagothrix flavicauda in the Región Junín, Peru


S EAN M. MCHUGH,FANNY M. CORNE J O ,J ASMINA MCKI BBE N,MELISS A ZARAT E CAR L O S TELL O,CAR L O S F. J IMÉN EZ and CHRIS T O PHE R A. SCHMITT


Abstract The Critically Endangered Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey Lagothrix flavicauda was presumed to only occur in the tropical montane cloud forests between the Marañón and Huallaga rivers in northern Peru. Here we report the discovery of a population to the south of its previously known range, in the Región Junín. During September–December 2018 we carried out transect surveys to record large mammals present near the village of San Antonio in the district of Pampa Hermosa, at 1,287–2,015m altitude. We recorded five primate species during transect surveys. Lagothrix flavicauda was seen four times, and appeared phenotypically distinct from populations to the north, with notable white patches above each eye and a reduced yellow patch at the end of the tail. The presence of L. flavicauda in Junín extends its known geographical range over 200 km southwards from the closest previously known population in the Huánuco region, and presents a unique opportunity for the conservation of this Critically Endangered species.


Keywords Andean montane forest, distribution, Lagothrix flavicauda, Neotropical primates, Peru, primate conserva- tion, yellow-tailed woolly monkey


Supplementary material for this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1017/S003060531900084X


nationally in Peru (Heymann, 2004; MINAGRI, 2014) and internationally (Cornejo et al., 2008), and is one of the most threatened primates (DeLuycker & Heymann, 2007;


T SEAN M. MCHUGH (Corresponding author, orcid.org/0000-0002-3306-8832)


and JASMINA MCKIBBEN Rainforest Partnership, 800 W 34th St Suite #105, Austin, Texas 78705, USA. E-mail sean@rainforestpartnership.org


FANNY M. CORNEJO Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA, and Yunkawasi, Lima, Peru


MELISSA ZARATE Department of Biology, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA


CARLOS TELLO and CARLOS F. JIMÉNEZ Yunkawasi, Lima, Peru CHRISTOPHER A. SCHMITT (


orcid.org/0000-0003-2143-9226) Department of Anthropology and Biology, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA


Received 4 February 2019. Revision requested 10 April 2019. Accepted 15 July 2019. First published online 25 October 2019.


he Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey Lagothrix fla- vicauda is categorized as Critically Endangered both


Cornejo et al., 2009). Research on L. flavicauda has focused on sparse museum and genetic samples to elucidate its taxo- nomic placement. Phenetic and morphological analyses had placed it in the monospecific genus Oreonax (Thomas, 1927; Groves, 2001), or as a sister species to the other woolly monkeys in the genus Lagothrix (Fooden, 1963; Matthews & Rosenberger, 2008; Rosenberger & Matthews, 2008). Recent molecular genetic analyses support the latter (Ruiz- Garcia et al., 2014; Di Fiore et al., 2015). Knowledge of this species comes mainly from long-term study sites in remnant high-elevation tropical Andean forests in the Región Amazonas and Región San Martín in Peru (Graves &O’Neil, 1980; Leo Luna, 1980, 1982; Butchart et al., 1995; DeLuycker, 2007; Cornejo, 2008; Shanee et al., 2008; Shanee, 2011; Shanee et al., 2013a,b; Allgas et al., 2014). The last assessment of viable habitat in this area, in 2009, estimated a reduction by almost 56% since surveys in 1981 (Buckingham & Shanee, 2009), leading to an estimated 93% decline of L. flavicauda numbers in this area (Shanee & Shanee, 2014). Early estimates of the geographical range of L. flavicauda placed it in the pre-montane and montane forests between the Marañón and Huallaga rivers, but recent research has expanded that range southwards into Región Huánuco and east of the Río Huallaga near the border with Región Pasco (Shanee et al., 2013a; Aquino et al., 2016a,b; Aquino et al., 2019; Fig. 1). There are also reports of L. flavicauda in areas of Región La Libertad (Parker & Barkley, 1981; Shanee et al., 2013b) and Región Loreto (Patterson & Wong, 2014), but these potential occurrences have been neither consistently observed nor studied. Neither field surveys nor distribution niche modeling have placed L. flavicauda further south than south-east Huánuco (Shanee et al., 2013a;Shaneeet al., 2015;Aquino et al., 2017; Aquino et al., 2019), although further field surveys of Pasco and Junín are necessary to assess its presence in these regions (Aquino et al., 2019). Here we report L. flavicauda 206 km south-east of previous observations in Huánuco. Our study area is the upper and lower montane forest


adjacent to the Río Pampa Hermosa, near the village of San Antonio in Región Junín (Fig. 2), where accessible forest at lower elevations has been cleared for small-scale cultiva- tion of coffee, coca, corn and yucca. Cattle ranching is also a contributing factor to this deforestation. Because of the steep slopes and terrain, however, most of the forest remains intact, albeit with some selective logging. Our study area has


Oryx, 2020, 54(6), 814–818 © 2019 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S003060531900084X


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