“KUNMING, Yunnan, China, May 27, 2008 (ENS) - An ape subspecies that once roamed China’s Yunnan province has disappeared, a Chinese-Swiss research team has concluded. A white-handed gibbon, or lar gibbon, Hylobates lar, was last observed in 1988 in the Nangunhe Nature Reserve in southwestern Yunnan province, and the loud, melodious calls of this species of ape were last heard in Yunnan in 1992.

After two weeks of recent field work, the 14 member team of scientists assembled by anthropologists from Zurich University concluded that as a result of continued forest destruction, fragmentation and deterioration as well as hunting, this gibbon species no longer exists in Yunnan.” ~ ENS

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