New records and geographic distribution of Grey Woolly Monkeys , Lagothrix cana ( É . Geoffroy , 1812 ) ( Primates , Atelidae ) , in southern Brazilian Amazonia

We report a range extension of the Grey Woolly Monkey, Lagothrix cana, from southwestern Amazonia, Mato Grosso, Brazil. Lagothrix cana was seen in a forest fragment near the “arc of deforestation”. This new record shows the need for conservation of forests in the region to protect this endangered species.

In the Brazilian Amazon there are 401 species of mammals and 94 of them are primates (Paglia et al. 2012).The Amazon is the Brazilian biome that has the greatest diversity and endemism of primates (Paglia et al. 2012).All five primate families occur in the Amazon, where they are represented by 15 genera, including 10 that are endemic (Paglia et al. 2012;Dalponte et al. 2014;MMA 2014;Vermeer and Tello-Alvarado 2015;IUCN 2015).Despite these impressive numbers, many of the primate species in the Amazon region are poorly known ecologically, geographically, and demographically, mainly because of difficult access (Machado et al. 2005).
Among the species lacking information are the largest primates in Latin America are those belonging to the genus Lagothrix (the Atelidae) and specifically the Grey Woolly Monkey, Lagothrix cana (É.Geoffroy, 1812) (Ruiz-García et al. 2014).The lack of scientific knowledge is evident when we see how few publications contextualise the ecology and geographical distribution of L. cana (Fooden 1963;Peres 1994;Wallace et al. 1996;Wallace andPainter 1999, Iwanaga andFerrari 2002;Celino 2013).
Lagothrix cana is endemic to western Amazonia, Brazil, where it is restricted to areas south of the Amazonas and Solimões rivers, between the Juruá, Tapajós, and Juruena rivers; the southern limits of distribution are in the state of Rondônia west of the Guaporé River and the Bolivian border (Fooden 1963;Wallace et al. 1996;Iwanaga and Ferrari 2002).Here, a range extension is reported to the Guaporé River valley, on the border between the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso, in southwestern Amazonia.This in an ecotone region between the Amazon and Cerrado biomes.
On the morning of 28 November 2014 at approximately 09:30 h, in a forest fragment in the municipality of Comodoro (13°42ʹ48ʺ S, 060°21ʹ16ʺ W), Mato Grosso state, Brazil, we observed a group of 10 foraging individuals of L. cana (Figure 1) while conducting a census by line-transect survey (Buckland et al. 2010).The forest fragment has an area of about 11,500 ha and is in an

Notes oN GeoGraphic DistributioN
Nunes and Orsini | New records of Grey Woolly Monkeys Our new record extends the geographic distribution of L. cana by about 150 km southwest of the southern limit of othe species' range as proposed by Iwanaga and Ferrari (2002), and 40 km southeast of that proposed by Boubli et al. (2008).Iwanaga and Ferrari (2002) predicted that the distribution of this species in Rondônia state might be limited to the San Pedro River and west of the Pimenta Bueno River due to a combination of geographic and ecological factors that include habitat quality, a heterogeneous landscape of ecotone between the Amazon and Cerrado biomes.The fragment is near the region known as the "arc of deforestation" and lies 30 km from Noel Kempff Mercado National Park on the border with Bolivia in the Guaporé River valley (Figure 2).
Lagothrix cana were identified by field observations, based on their size, vocalisation and color pattern of pelage (Boubli et al. 2008) .Our identification was later confirmed by specialists based on photographic records (L. S. Moreira, com.pess.).(MMA 2014;IUCN 2015).This species is intolerant of habitat disturbances and suffers intense hunting pressure, including on Indigenous Lands (Peres 1990(Peres , 2001;;Defler and Stevenson 2014).Furthermore, because L. cana has a long generation time, anthropogenic threats especially impede population growth in areas with constant human pressures (Levi and Peres 2013).
Our discovery of L. cana in the Guaporé River valley highlights the regional importance of southwestern Amazonia for the conservation of primates.This ecotone region, between the Amazon and Cerrado biomes, is near the "arc of deforestation", which extends across five states from parts of Rondônia, Mato Grosso, Pará, Tocantins, and Maranhão (Ferreira et al. 2005).Deforestation rates in this area are the highest in all of the Brazilian Amazon (Metzger 2001;Michalski et al. 2008).Thus, efforts to conserve populations of L. cana are essential, not only for the intrinsic value of the species itself, but also for the preservation of whole ecosystem.

Table 1 .
Occurrences records for Lagothrix cana, according to published data and the present study.
Figure 2. Geographic distribution of Lagothrix cana.Data as in Table 1

.
Nunes and Orsini | New records of Grey Woolly Monkeys mountains, plains, and savannahs, and competition with other large primates.Two examples of large, possibly competing primates are Alouatta puruensis(Lönnberg 1941)and Chiropotes albinasus (I.Geoffroy & Deville, 1848), but we found that these two species coexist with L. cana.This report contributes directly to the geographical knowledge of L. cana, which has been assessed as Endangered by Brazil and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature