A taxonomic revisions of the langurs and leaf monkeys (Primates: Colobinae) of South Asia

Abstract

Over 300 study specimens from Chicago, Kolkata, Leiden, London, Mumbai, New York, Paris and Washington DC are combined with a literature survey to review the taxonomy of Semnopithecus johnii, S. entellus and S. priam. Simia johnii Fischer, 1829 is declared a nomen protectum. Tne 15 subspecies Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1908) recognized for Semnopithecus entellus are reduced to seven subspecies for S. entelkis and two for S. priam. Type specimens are documented, pelage colour variation described, and the nomenclature and subspecific geographic distributions discussed. Two previously recognized subspecies are reinterpreted as hybrid populations of S. entellus and S. johnii. The central Indian S. entellus anchises, previously suspected as being only an intermediate between subspecies, is found to occupy a substential discrete distribution. The Himalayan subspecies S. e. schistaceus proves to have a much wider distribution than previously conceived, extending from northwestern Bhutan possibly to Afghanistan. The corollary is that the distribution of S. e. ajax is reduced to three known localities, two of them over 930km apart, indicating the intervening occurrence of an as yet unconfirmed high altitude population of this subspecies.