Star Wars gibbon is new primate species discovered in China

Star Wars gibbon is new primate species discovered in China A gibbon living in the tropical forests of south west China is a new species of primate, scientists have concluded. The animal has been studied for some time, but new research confirms it is different from all other gibbons. It has been named the Skywalker hoolock gibbon - partly because the Chinese characters of its scientific name

mean "Heaven's movement" but also because the scientists are fans of Star Wars.

The study is published in the American Journal of Primatology.

Dr Sam Turvey, from the Zoological Society of London, who was part of the team studying the apes, told BBC News: "In this area, so many species have declined or gone extinct because of habitat loss, hunting and general human overpopulation.

"So it's an absolute privilege to see something as special and as rare as a gibbon in a canopy in a Chinese rainforest, and especially when it turns out that the gibbons are actually a new species previously unrecognised by science."

The researchers began to suspect the Yunnan Province gibbons were different

Hoolock gibbons are found in Bangladesh, India, China and Myanmar. They spend most of their time living in the treetops, swinging through the forests with their forelimbs, rarely spending any time on the ground.

But the research team - led by Fan Peng-Fei from Sun Yat-sen University in China - started to suspect that the animals they were studying in China's Yunnan Province were unusual.

All hoolock gibbons have white eyebrows and some have white beards - but the Chinese primates' markings differed in appearance.

Their songs, which they use to bond with other gibbons and to mark out their territory, also had an unusual ring.