5^th  Asian Primate Symposium which was jointly organized by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University was held from 18^th to 20^th October 2016 at the Mount Lavinia Hotel.  The symposium was locally chaired by Prof. Charmalie Nahallage and International organizing co chairs were Profs. Michael Huffman and Yuzuru Hamada. The chief guest of the symposium was Hon. Gamini Jayawickrama Perera, Minister of Sustainable Development and Wildlife and the guest of honours were Mr. Koji Yagi, Deputy Ambassador, Japanese Embassy of Sri Lanka and Senior Prof. Hemanthi Ranasinghe, Acting Vice Chancellor University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

This year’s theme was “Elucidation of Evolutionary History and Conservation of Asian Primates by Construction of an International Consortium”.  Eminent primatologists from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Taiwan, China and Japan participated and presented their research findings together with many local primatologists. The symposium was conducted under seven tracks namely; Ecology and Bio-Diversity, Conservation and Management, Human-Animal Conflict, Morphological Diversity, Hybridization/Invasive Alian Species, Bioinformatics, Phylogeography.  Such symposium was organized for the first time in Sri Lanka and it provided a good platform for the local researchers to interacted and share their experiences and knowledge specifically on Asian primates and on other primates in general.