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Scientist discovers two new monkey species in Brazilian Amazon 
MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/06/23/interna
tional1406EDT0503.DTL

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(06-23) 22:59 PDT RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- 

Scientists working in Brazil's central Amazon have discovered two new monkey
species that are about the size of kittens, according to a conservation
group. 

The monkeys were discovered by Marc Van Roosmalen, a Dutch scientist working
at Brazil's National Institute for Amazon Research in Manaus, 1,800 miles
northwest of Rio de Janeiro. Van Roosmalen works in a little-explored region
of the Amazon near the confluence of the Madeira and Tapajos rivers. 

Full scientific descriptions of the monkeys, Callicebus bernhardi and
Callicebus stephennashi, were published by the peer-review journal
Neotropical Primates, a collaborative publication of Conservation
International, a U.S.-based nonprofit group. 

"This once again demonstrates how little we know about biodiversity, these
are the 37th and 38th new primate species described since 1990," said
Russell Mittermeier, the group's president and co-author of the scientific
descriptions of the monkeys. 

Van Roosmalen discovered the bernhardi monkey -- named after Holland's
Prince Bernhard -- between the east bank of Madeira river and the lower
reaches of the Aripuana river. 

He found it accidentally while traveling in the region searching for another
new species, the dwarf marmoset, which a local fisherman brought to his door
in 1996 because he knew Van Roosmalen cared for orphaned monkeys. 

The bernhardi monkey is remarkable for its dark orange sideburns, chest and
inner sides of its limbs. It has a reddish-brown back and a white-tipped
black tail. 

The bernhardi's head and body measure about 15 inches and the tail another
22 inches. An average individual weighs about 33 ounces. 

Van Roosmalen found the second monkey last year while conducting a
scientific survey near the Purus river with his son, Tomas. 

The stephennashi is a silver monkey with a black forehead and red sideburns,
chest and red on the inner sides of its limbs. Its head and body measures
about 11 inches and the tail another 17 inches. An average individual weighs
about 24 ounces. 

The new monkeys are the fourth and fifth new species described by Van
Roosmalen, who says he has discovered another 20 unnamed species in the same
central-Amazon region. 

There are 310 known monkey species in the world and Brazil has the largest
number of them -- 95 endemic species. 

"It's not that I'm so special. The fact is that since the 1800s nobody did
any work like I'm doing the last five years," Van Roosmalen said from
Amsterdam, Netherlands, where he will present a portrait of the bernhardi
monkey to the Dutch prince later this week. 

The flood plain region is similar to a landlocked archipelago where dozens
of smaller, crisscrossing rivers serve as natural barriers, allowing
once-similar species to evolve differently over thousands of years. 

"It's a Terra Incognita and at the same time an El Dorado for biologists,
full of new species and not visited by biologists or botanists," Van
Roosmalen said. 

El Dorado refers to a mythical land of gold and plenty sought by centuries
of adventurers in South America. 

Anthony Rylands, a professor of vertebrate zoology at the Federal University
of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil, is familiar with the new monkeys and
confirmed they are new species. 

"They are very important. They give us a better understanding, although
still an incomplete understanding, of this group and of primates in the
Amazon basin in general," Rylands said. 

Though the monkeys are in a little-disturbed part of the Amazon and are not
threatened with extinction, Van Roosmalen is working to guarantee their
survival. 

To that end, he is offering to name the other discovered species after
people who pay to help create nature reserves in the region. 

Under Brazilian law, citizens can create private nature reserves on their
land in exchange for an exemption from property taxes. So far, Van
Roosmalen, a naturalized Brazilian, has created two reserves covering about
150,000 acres of unspoiled forest. 

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