Monkey Halloween

Scientists have discovered another species of those tragic snub-nosed monkeys that look like victims of plastic surgery gone horribly wrong. And this one comes with such a sad story:

Many people assured us that this species was
particularly easy to find when it was raining. The
monkeys reportedly tend to get rainwater in their
upturned noses, to which they respond with audible
sneezes. To avoid getting rainwater in their noses,
the monkeys allegedly spend rainy days sitting with
their heads tucked face-down between their knees.

The new species is called Rhinopithecus strykeri, but that's not exactly a picture of it. Unfortunately, the scientists only got pictures of a dead one, so this image sent to the media is a related species, the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus bieti), given a Photoshop dye job to approximate the appearance in life of the new species. Here's the original:


So, basically, what you've got there is an old kind of monkey dressed up as a new kind of monkey. Someone ought to give it some candy bars as a Halloween reward, don't you think?

-Wombat (No Relation)

Photos from Live Science and the American Journal of Primatology.