This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: There are 536 species of monkeys in the world today, and the Democratic Republic of Congo has a new one. Named Likweli, this rainforest primate is one of only five new African monkey species described in the past 75 years.
Despite its distinctive orange lips, it has been spotted by locals only a few times since 2008. It took doctoral student of biological sciences Junior Amboko (who named the new monkey) and an international team that included anthropologist Kate Detwiler years of searching on foot and by canoe, as well as field observations, photographs, audio recordings, genetic analysis and anatomical analysis, to prove that Likweli was a species new to science. They explain their search.
Likweli (Colobus congoensis) is a relatively small colobus monkey, weighing about 7 kg (15 pounds), with silky black hair and a long black tail. Like all colobus monkeys, it has no thumbs. Its most distinctive features are its face and rump.
Its face is black and dark gray, framed by long, spiky black hair that continues across the forehead and onto the top of the head. The most striking feature is the pale orange-cream skin around the mouth and beneath the nose, which stands out against the dark face, especially when it makes its deep, roaring calls. At the base of the tail is a bright white patch.
We became convinced that Likweli was a new species of monkey because our genetic analyses showed that the ancestor of Likweli split from the ancestor of Colobus satanas, another similar species found today in the region, about four to five million years ago. This was much further back than we expected and provided strong evidence that Likweli is a distinct species. What's more, the two species are separated by more than 1,200 km (750 miles) and several major rivers.
This raises questions about how the Congo Basin's river system has shaped the evolution and distribution of mammals over millions of years. Likweli lives in one of the most remote parts of the DRC, in a small area of about 1,700 km² (660 square miles). It is rare, shy and usually stays high in the forest canopy.
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