OSLO (Reuters) - Almost half the world’s monkeys and apes are facing a worsening threat of extinction because of deforestation and hunting for meat, an international report showed on Tuesday.

“We have solid data to show that the situation is far more severe than we imagined,” said Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International and head of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) primate specialist group.

An assessment for an IUCN “Red List” of endangered species found that 48 percent of the 634 known species and sub-species of primates, humankind’s closest relatives such as chimpanzees, orangutans, gibbons and lemurs, were at risk of extinction. (more…)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A red-breasted bird discovered by accident in the forests of Gabon is a new species, U.S. scientists said on Friday.

They have named the little bird the olive-backed forest robin, or Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus, but say they know little about it yet.

The Smithsonian Institution team found the bird while visiting the forest on a biodiversity project, said Brian Schmidt, a research ornithologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

“I suspected something when I found the first bird in Gabon since it didn’t exactly match any of the species descriptions in the field guides,” Schmidt said in a statement. (more…)