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The living primates — anywhere between 233 and 290 species, depending on whom you talk to — are widely distributed from South America to Africa to Japan. (Figure 4-6 shows this distribution.) Most are found in the tropics or semi-tropics (within 1,500 miles north or south of the equator). New species still occasionally surface — for example, the sideburn-sporting titi monkeys of South America (found in 2002) and two new lemur species found in 2005 in Madagascar. Some species are flourishing in large wilderness areas, but development is steadily reducing and fragmenting these regions.

Illustration courtesy of Cameron M. Smith, PhD

FIGURE 4-6: Global distribution of primates today.

In 1996, the World Conservation Union reported on the many threats to primate species, and in 2003 they revealed that about half of the more than 200 primate species were under severe threat. The situation hasn’t gotten any better since that report. In October 2007, the International Primatological Society and Conservation International copublished a list of the 25 most threatened and endangered primate species. Astonishingly, these groups include chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and some kinds of gibbons; essentially, aside from humans, all the great apes are facing extinction. Maybe we should be more ashamed than astonished, though; conservationists have been telling us for 30 years that these and other species were in trouble. But even pointing out that we share at least 95 percent of our DNA with most of these species hasn’t reduced the threats to our closest living relatives. These threats include

 Habitat destruction from logging, particularly in Southeast Asia and Borneo, home of the orangutan

 Habitat destruction from agriculture, particularly in the African Congo, where farms are encroaching on gorilla habitat

 Poaching, much of it for meat, some of which sells for spectacular prices on the African “bush meat” market

Any conscientious anthropologist today will tell you that for the threatened and endangered species, right now research priorities must include conservation effort. If the species aren’t preserved, how can you find out about our species from them? And if humans let our closest living relatives go extinct without a real fight, what does that say about us?