The Myanmar Snub-Nosed Monkey is mostly black, with protruding white ear tufts, a mostly naked face with pale pink skin, a "moustache" of whitish hairs above the upper lip, and a distinct white chin beard. The lips are prominent, and the nose upturned, allegedly causing the animal to sneeze in rainy weather. As an adult male, it has a length of 55.5 centimetres, and a tail 78 cm long. They spend their summer months in northern Burma and China in temperate mixed forests at upper altitudes of their range, and descend to lower ground in the winter to escape snow. The species is known in local dialects of Lisu people as mey nwoah and Law Waw people as myuk na tok te, both of which mean "monkey with an upturned face," and when first discovered in 2010, they only were known to live in three or four groups of 260 to 330 individuals within a 270 square kilometres range at 1,700 to 3,200 metres above sea level in the eastern Himalayas, in the north-eastern section of Kachin State, the northernmost part of Burma. In 2011, a small population of a hundred was discovered in Lushui County, Yunnan, China in the Gaoligongshan National Nature Reserve. The species is isolated from other snub-nosed Rhinopithecus by the Mekong and the Salween rivers; the other 4 species, golden, black, gray and Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys, are found in China and Vietnam. The snub-nosed group of monkeys diverged from other Asian monkeys about 6.8-6 million years ago, and from Nasalis and Simia clade about 1.2 Ma. Various species of the snub-nosed group split from each other about 730,000-400,000 years ago. It is recognized as critically endangered by the IUCN; its unique appearance, behaviour and vulnerability make it outstanding in conservation issues, but it is seriously threatened by hunting and wildlife trade, illegal logging and forest destruction linked to hydropower schemes and associated infrastructure development.