The high altitude wildlife areas of western Arunachal Pradesh

The Tawang macaque
Appendix 2
A report on the Tawang macaque Macaca sp.
Anindya Sinha, Aparajita Datta, M. D. Madhusudan, and Charudutt Mishra
The high altitude (> 3000 m) wildlife of Eastern Himalayan Arunachal Pradesh has
remained largely unexplored and unprotected. All existing wildlife reserves in
Arunachal protect low to mid-elevation habitats. Wildlife research and exploration
have also been restricted to these habitats, with no comprehensive survey till date of
Arunachal’s high altitude wildlife.
Three of us (AD, MDM, and CM) undertook a biological expedition between
August and October, 2003, to inventory the high altitude wildlife of Arunachal
Pradesh, evaluate threats to their conservation, and to identify sites suitable for
establishment of high altitude wildlife reserves. We covered the entire high altitude
areas of Tawang and West Kameng Districts in Western Arunachal. During the
expedition, we had eight sightings of troops of a macaque Macaca sp. in different parts
of Tawang district (Fig. 1). This primate potentially represents a species new to
science. Here, we provide an account of our sightings and morphological notes on the
‘Tawang macaque’.
The Tawang macaque
Although the elevation in Tawang district ranges between 2000 to > 6000 m, the
macaques were encountered between 2000 and 2700 m. Subtropical broadleaved
Fig. 1. A map of Tawang district showing sighting locations of the Tawang macaque, Macaca sp.
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