For the second time in 28 years Africa can say it has a new species of monkey – the lesula is found in remote forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The last monkey to be discovered in Africa was the kipunji (Rungwecebus kipunji) in Tanzania in 2003, nearly two decades after the last find, the sun-tailed monkey (Rercopithecus solatus) in Gabon, in 1984.

What makes this find significant is that the identification of a new mammal is not something that happens every day.

Lesula (Cercopithecus lomamiensis) is described as having “a naked face and a mane of long blond hairs, and it is shy and quiet. It lives both on the ground and in trees in a 6 500 square mile habitat of the lowland rainforests in the centre of the DRC between the middle Lomami [the inspiration for the species’ name] and the upper Tshuapa Rivers. Its diet is mostly fruit and vegetation.”

John and Terese Hart of Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History first saw the species in 2007, and who are both biologists at the Lukuru Wildlife Research Project, say:

This was a totally unexpected find, and we knew we had something unusual and possibly unknown when we first saw the animal. But it was not until we had the genetic and morphological analyses of our collaborating team that we knew we really had a new species. The challenge now is to make the lesula an iconic species that carries the message for conservation for all of Congo’s endangered fauna. Species with small ranges like the lesula can move from vulnerable to seriously endangered over the course of just a few years.

The lesula supposedly lives either on its own, or in groups of up to five, and the hope is that it doesn’t disappear as quickly as it’s been found due to habitat destruction or being hunted for bush meat.

[Source: Guardian]