Baboons’ shy relative is first new primate in 80 years

A RECLUSIVE monkey discovered in Africa last year belongs to an entirely new primate family — the first described for 83 years, scientists said yesterday.

Originally, the Rungwecebus kipunji was thought to be a type of mangabey.

But more detailed observation and genetic analysis showed it was more closely related to baboons.

Scientists have now assigned it to a genus of its own — Rungwecebus, after Mount Rungwe in Tanzania where it was first spotted.

Dr William Stanley, from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, one of the experts who described the creature yesterday in the journal Science, said: “This is exciting news because it shows that the age of discovery is by no means over.”

The Field Museum houses the world’s only museum specimen of Rungwecebus.

Classification of the forest-dwelling primate was first based on nothing more than photographs.

Then one of the monkeys was killed in a farmer’s trap, offering scientists a chance to examine it closely.

Rungwecebus kipunji has light-to-medium greyish brown fur, with off-white fur on its belly and at the end of its long curled tail.

It also has a “crown” of a crest of long, erect hair. Adults make a distinctive, loud, low-pitched honking-barking sound. They live on leaves, shoots, flowers, bark, fruit and insects.

The monkeys are known to exist in just two remote high-altitude locations in Tanzania. Nineteen groups have been recorded.

They live in trees, in social groups of 30-36 adults.

The experts found that despite a genetic link with baboons, Rungwecebus was physically very different from the baboon family.

Primatologist John Oates said: “To find, in the 21st century, an entirely new species of large monkey living in the wild is surprising enough.

“To find one that can be placed in a new genus, and that sheds new light on the evolutionary history of the monkeys of Africa and Eurasia as a whole, is truly remarkable.”

Logging, charcoal making and poaching threaten the monkey’s forest home.