Nov 24, 2007

Snub-nosed

I would like to introduce to you the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithicus bieti). It is a very endangered monkey, found in China (this particular specimen abides in a zoo in Beijing). It gets its name from its utter lack of a nasal bone and from the up-turned nostrils.

Reminds me of some rhinoplasty jobs I've seen on Homo sapiens.

Thanks for the photos, Nils.







13 comments:

Anonymous said...

EW. There's a scene in The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles where Kit goes wandering through the fourth-class cars on the train and she sees a man with no nose at all, just a hole on his face. And this monkey just took me back to the unsettled place that deep, symbolic, beautiful and terrifying book dumped me in. Stupid ugly monkey face. My day job is no place for thoughts of the pointlessness of action in a godless, absurd, chaotic world without morals or conscience.

Anonymous said...

Or it could just be Joan Rivers.

Anonymous said...

This is by far the ugliest primate I've seen! It's like a zombie monkey!

Arachnophile said...

Comparisons to a certain Mr. Jackson come to mind but maybe that's just mean... to the monkey. ;)

Anonymous said...

Ewww is right....it looks pathological.

Anonymous said...

I've never been a fan of primates... but this is the ugliest one I've ever seen.

Good job.

Anonymous said...

@kritter - ha, I was just going to suggest Joan Rivers too. Definitely looks like an evolutionary mistake. Stuff would totally get lost up there. Excellent hairdo though.

Anonymous said...

But... how does it smell?

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's really weird looking. I've never even heard of this type of monkey before.
Very weird looking.. I thought it might've been deformed from either a birth defect or if they had to do surgery or something on it

Anonymous said...

terato--I've never smelled one, but I bet it stinks.

Anonymous said...

Actually I think they are beautiful, and if you've seen them in their natural habitat, they blend in so well with the snow. They are fascinating creatures and live in an altitude no other primates and most other creatures can't.

Anonymous said...

amazing. they might not be the most appealing, but ironically they are the most beautiful in the sense that they are one of the last great creatures to be admired and destroyed by human development and continuity as a species. a shame that species as rare and unseen as this disappear as quickly as they re-appear in our eyes as a new discovery even though they have resided in their home for who knows how many lifetimes. amazing creatures. without the nose, they appear more as a malformed human, possibly linked to the so called "yeti" sightings.these could have been the creatures local folk have seen all along but yet to find. they are as elusive as they are odd.

mookie said...

Beautiful creatures. I just saw a documentary on Wild China, which included these hunan snub-nosed monkeys in it. This led me here. They are endangered and in my opinion, very beautiful.