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New monkey species found in Tanzania

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

Thu May 19, 2:05 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two separate teams of researchers working  
hundreds of miles apart have discovered a new species of monkey in  
Tanzania.

The highland mangabey is the first new species of monkey identified  
in 20 years and conservationists immediately said the find showed how  
important it was to preserve African forests.

The highland mangabey is a medium-sized monkey, about 3 feet (90 cm)  
tall with a long tail, long brown fur, a black face, hands and feet.

Adults make a distinctive, loud, low-pitched "honk-bark" call. They  
live in mountainside trees at elevations of up to 8,000 feet.

Fewer than 1,000 of the animals live in the highland forest, the  
researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science. Hunters  
had described the animals but no scientist had identified them.

"If this small population is to be protected in perpetuity, the  
Udzungwa Mountains National Park needs to be extended to include the  
Ndundulu Forest," Trevor Jones of Tanzania's Udzungwa Mountains  
National Park and colleagues there and at the University of Georgia,  
Conservation International and Wildlife Conservation Society, wrote  
in their report.

"This exciting discovery demonstrates once again how little we know  
about our closest living relatives, the nonhuman primates," said  
Russell Mittermeier, chairman of the Primate Specialist Group of IUCN- 
The World Conservation Union's Species Survival Commission.

"A large, striking monkey in a country of considerable wildlife  
research over the last century has been hidden right under our noses."

The monkey, scientifically named Lophocebus kipunji, will likely be  
classified as a critically endangered species.

"Clearly this remarkable discovery shows that there are still wild  
places where humans are not the dominant species," said John  
Robinson, director of international conservation programs for the WCS.

"This new species of monkey should serve as a living symbol that  
there is hope in protecting not only wild places like Tanzania's  
Southern Highlands, but the wonder and mystery they contain,"  
Robinson said in a statement.

Earlier this month U.S. bird experts announced the discovery of an  
ivory-billed woodpecker, a species feared extinct for decades, in a  
remote Arkansas bayou.