Thomas Geissmann
Gibbon Research Lab., Hannover
A workshop with the title "Primate Taxonomy
for the New Millennium" was held in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., 25-29 February
2000. The workshop was organized by Don Melnick, Russell Mittermeier and John Oates.
Participants of the workshop included 22 specialists of all major taxonomic groups
of primates.
The aim of the workshop was to produce a working list of all known primate taxa as
the basis for conservation action. The list is not definitive by definition. Not
only is our knowledge and understanding of primate systematics and phylogeny consistently
changing, but also will different taxonomists usually produce different lists. The
list produced during the workshop, however, represents as much of a consensus as
was possible and certainly has a chance of being useful for a number of years. Where
it proved difficult to reach a consensus on the validity of a taxon, participants
leaned towards splitting rather than lumping.
The endproduct is a taxonomic listing covering over 300 primate species and over
600 taxa. The list indicates the countries where each taxon occurs and identifies
problematic taxa or taxonomic groups which require additional research (field/ distributions/
morphological/ genetic etc.).
The results of this workshop will be published in time for the IPS Congress in Adelaide,
Australia, January 2001. This listing will be the basis for the IUCN Red Data List,
including the Species Information System (SIS) and RAMAS software (currently underdevelopment)
and the Threatened Primate Species Action Plan, as well as for promoting research
on distributions, taxonomy and systematics, for conservation in the field and captive
management.
The Asian Primates List was compiled by Douglas Brandon-Jones, Ardith A. Eudey, Thomas
Geissmann, Don J. Melnick, Juan Carlos Morales, Myron Shekelle, and Caro Beth Stewart.
The one major change concerning gibbons is that the 4 subgenera (Bunopithecus,
Hylobates, Nomascus and Symphalangus) are elevated to genus
rank. Hoolocks (Bunopithecus) may eventually need a new genus name, however,
because the type of Bunopithecus sericus is a fossil which appears to be an
entirely different genus (Colin Groves, pers. comm.).
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