World’s rarest ape gives birth

With only about 100 cao vit gibbons remaining in the world, the recent birth of this baby has extra significance. This species is only found in one location, on the international border between Vietnam and China. Fauna & Flora International's conservationists in Vietnam and China are working with local government and communities to reduce the threats to the population. This birth is a sign of hope for the species' long term recovery.

Acrobatic gibbons
The cao vit gibbon must be one of the most acrobatic of all the species with which FFI works. They execute heart-stopping leaps as they pursue each other through the forest canopy. Gibbons have the longest arms of any primate, relative to body size. Their hand-over-hand method of swinging from branch to branch, known as brachiation, enables them to move at breathtaking speed. With its spectacular locomotion and haunting, bird-like calls, the cao vit gibbon is a real show-stealer.

Complex social behaviour
Although classified as ‘lesser apes', cao vit gibbons are highly intelligent and show complex social behaviour. Males and females proclaim and protect their family territory with 'duets', which can be heard 2 kilometres away. They have also evolved a highly specialised diet of flowers, fruit and young leaves.

Easily located by hunters
The narrowness of its ecological niche, combined with its ostentatious behaviour has, however, helped to precipitate the cao vit gibbon's sharp decline. Though no longer a significant factor today, hunters posed a serious threat to the gibbons in the past, easily locating them in the forest. Such pressures have been compounded more recently by environmental changes to which the gibbon is unable to adapt; livestock overgrazing, firewood collection and encroaching agriculture are all contributing to the ongoing loss and fragmentation of its traditional habitat, jeopardising the cao vit gibbon's survival.

Along with the Hainan gibbon, the sister species from which it has recently split, the cao vit gibbon is one of the two most endangered apes in the world. The species formerly ranged across much of China and Vietnam.

Just 110 individuals alive - Thought extinct until 2002
Today only an estimated 110 individuals remain, confined to the karst limestone forest along the China-Vietnam border. Until 2008 only 50 were thought to exist but a detailed survey discovered around 110.

The species was actually considered extinct until an FFI-led team discovered a small remnant sub-population in Vietnam's Cao Bang Province in 2002.

FFI has been working to conserve the species since that first group was found. We have established community groups on both sides of the border to patrol and protect the gibbon's habitat. In addition, by working with local people, we are identifying and implementing simple and cost-effective measures to relieve pressure on the forest, such as providing villagers with fuel-efficient stoves. In fact, the cao vit gibbon is acting as a valuable flagship species, helping to secure protected area designation for the biologically rich, but threatened, karst limestone forest on which its survival depends.