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These Adorable Primates Are The World's Most Endangered

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Northern Sportive LemursThe most endangered primates may be the world's most adorable as well.

These 25 primate species, released today by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, hail from all around the world and includes nine species from Asia, six from Madagascar, five from Africa, and five from Neotropics.

See the list [pdf].

These primates, some of humanity's closest evolutionary cousins, are endangered by habitat loss, the illegal wildlife trade, and hunting.

They aren't the only ones though: "More than half (54%) of the world’s 633 primate species and subspecies with known conservation status are classified as threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species," the IUCN release says.

Lion-Tailed MacaqueSome of the animals on the list are very rare, for example there are only 19 Northern Sportive Lemurs known in the wild. Not only are these primate species adorable, but they play an important role in tropical forests as seed dispersers.

The list, now in its seventh edition, is complied every two years and has shown some success in bringing attention to the primates. Species like the Lion-Tailed Macaque in India and the Greater Bamboo Lemur from Madagascar were on previous iterations of the list but thanks to increased conservation interest they are doing much better. 

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