'Black Needles Peak') is the fifth-highest mountain in Brazil,[Note 1] standing at 2,791 metres (9,157 ft) above sea level, making it one of the highest in the Brazilian Highlands.

Further attempts were made by André Rebouças in 1878 and by Horácio de Carvalho in 1898, but the summit was only reached by Carlos Spierling and Osvaldo Leal in 1919.

It is accessible by a gravel road (BR-485) from the BR-354 federal highway at the Garganta do Registro mountain pass, via Itatiaia National Park's north entrance.

Even then, Agulhas Negras was still thought to be the highest point in the Mantiqueira range, until a 2001 GPS measurement (later confirmed by an official joint expedition of the Brazilian Army and the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics - IBGE) showed that nearby Pedra da Mina was that mountain range's highest point at 2,798 metres (9,180 ft), about seven metres higher than Agulhas Negras.

In 2015, IBGE completed a new and more accurate mapping of the Brazilian territory regarding the geoid, the irregular imaginary surface based on the Earth's gravitational field that is the reference for altitude measurements.