New species of mangabey found in Tanzania

A PSGB Conservation Grant has helped researchers to discover a new mangabey in southern Tanzania, the first discovery of a species of monkey in Africa for twenty years. Recently described in Science (Jones et al.,20 May 2005, Vol. 308, 5725, pp. 1161-1164), the new animal has been named the Highland mangabey Lophocebus kipunji.

An adult highland mangabey Lophocebus kipunji in the Ndundulu Forest Reserve, Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania.

Highland mangabeys are medium-sized monkeys, medium-brown in colour, with a long upright crest. They share with the other Lophocebus species (L. albigena and L. aterrimus) the generic traits of black hands and feet, black face (including eyelids), elongated muzzle, a pronounced suborbital fossae “tear line”, and arboreal living. They differ from all other mangabeys in appearance, especially in having off-white chest and belly and bottom half of tail, and in having unique vocalisations (the species-specific “honk-bark” is described in the Science paper). They have been found about 800km from the nearest population of another Lophocebus species, L. albigena.

The new mangabey was first discovered early last year on Mount Rungwe, Tanzania by a team from Wildlife Conservation Society’s Southern Highlands Conservation Programme, led by Tim Davenport. A few months later, Trevor Jones (working for Dr. Carolyn Ehardt’s Sanje Mangabey Research Project) was surveying forests in the Udzungwa Mountains, 350km away from Mt. Rungwe, supported by a grant from PSGB. At the time unaware of the first discovery, T. Jones and his field assistant then came upon a second population of highland mangabeys in Ndundulu Forest Reserve, in the Udzungwas. 

Both sites holding the new species are moist forests in remote mountainous areas, between 1300 and 2450m above sea level, and L. kipunji becomes the only mangabey known to exist solely in high altitude forests.

The two known populations are very small, each consisting of no more than 500 animals. L. kipunji is expected to be placed on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species as critically endangered, though further survey work is required before a reasonably accurate estimate of total abundance can be made. The discovery poses many intriguing questions in the fields of biogeography, primate taxonomy and ecology, and most critically, highlights the urgent conservation challenge of protecting the highland mangabey’s forest habitat for the long term.

On Mt. Rungwe, the forest is already severely degraded, and overexploitation is continuing. The WCS Southern Highlands Conservation Programme are continuing research into the highland mangabey, and are committed to working with local people to find solutions to save its remaining habitat. In the Udzungwas, the mangabeys are currently known from only 3km² of forest, and for unknown reasons are absent from large swathes of apparently suitable habitat. Trevor Jones (currently back in the UK) will be returning to Tanzania later this year to continue research on the Udzungwa population.

Trevor Jones

Email: tembomkubwa@gmail.com