Landscape attributes for all of Brazil’s threatened primates are similar to those listed among the World’s 25 most endangered primates

Abstract The "Primates in Peril: The World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates" list, also known as the Top 25 list, has been published every two years since 2000. Its goal is to boost conservation efforts for these primates. The Top 25 list only includes threatened species according to the IUCN Red List classification and aims for balanced species representation. Analyzing species threats could complement this approach, offering insights to prioritize conservation efforts and identify which primates need urgent attention. We compared the landscape attributes of threatened Brazilian primates that were listed and unlisted in the Top 25 lists from 2000 to 2022 to determine whether listed species face greater anthropogenic threats and to assess trends in their representation. We show that unlisted threatened Brazilian primates are similarly menaced as those listed in the Top 25 list, based on landscape attributes. Their inclusion or removal wasn’t driven by temporal habitat trends (2000-2022), nor by the Atlantic Forest’s modest recovery, nor by habitat loss in the Cerrado and Amazon. Thus, although species already listed in the Top 25 align with the IUCN threat categories, landscape pressures do not suggest these primates face heightened threat exposure. Based on our results, we consider that mapping threats can help identify species inhabiting more anthropized landscapes, potentially pinpointing candidates for inclusion in the Top 25 list.