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A British primatologist is collaborating with US scientists to develop a facial recognition application that will help him and others to search for and protect rare golden monkeys in Rwanda.
Gold monkeys are an endangered species in the Virunga Mountains that straddle Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the famous mountain gorillas live.
Sue Wiper spent a year and a half studying the monkeys in an altitude bamboo forest in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park. This was part of his ongoing doctoral research at Chester University.
The gold monkeys – listed on the Red List of Threatened Species prepared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature – live in large groups with, as discovered Wiper, more than 40 species. a male throughout the year. To explore this social dynamic, the scientist had to individually identify the members of the troupe.
And it was the challenge. The golden monkeys are beautiful to look at, with their long golden hair and bright orange back. But they are all alike. And while this may seem to be the case with anyone who interacts with any type of monkey, this is especially the case with golden monkeys, says Wiper. They really look identical to the human eye.
Challenge to distinguish the monkeys
"One of the reasons why no research has been conducted on gold monkeys is due to the identification problems that are imperative when one looks at social behavior." , she told RFI.
Wiper first went through the painstaking process of finding any distinctive feature that she could. Golden male monkeys are larger than females. It was a start. "Scars on the ears, broken fingers, hairs in the nose" could sometimes differentiate men, she said.
Females could be spotted by nicks in the ears or sometimes by the length of their bad. Even by the pigmentation on their bad. Still, says Wiper, "it was a very long process."
After reading about a facial recognition app developed by researchers from the Michigan State University's Computer Science and Engineering Department for Lemurs (http://www.youtube.com/watch a primate species unique to Madagascar), Wiper contacted them.
They worked together – and this led to the PrimID application. Scientists can use it on their smartphones to positively identify individual golden monkeys on the ground. It can also be used for lemurs, chimpanzees and other primates whose images are loaded into the database.
App halves time and research
To badist in the development of the app, Wiper has provided 1,450 face images and dozens of video clips of the gold monkeys that she has obtained in her patch of Volcanoes National Park.
An article she co-authored with scientists at the MSU indicated that the design of facial recognition applications in primates poses problems because of "the presence of variations in the hair and the hair, low contrast between the eyes and the background and eye color variations in different individuals.
Wiper sees that the application ultimately helps international and Rwandan scientists to conduct research on golden apes.
"Historically, primatologists need to spend time teaching individuals before they can start conducting research. If each site in the field needs to do it only once, then use the application, it will save valuable time and research can start sooner, "he said. she explained.
It is estimated that about 500 goread monkeys in the wild in Rwanda and Uganda. We do not know how many there are in the DRC, where the monkeys live.
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