Blue What? New Owl-Faced Monkey Species Discovered in Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa

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Video publisher noticed signs of digging at the base of bamboo thickets in Kahuzi-Biega National Park, so a camera-trap was set up. First a Black-Fronted Duiker passed in the early morning light. Then, almost every day a troop of Hamlyn’s monkeys (Cercopithecus hamlyni), also known as the owl-faced monkey, passed the spot.

A new species of monkey with a long kind-looking face, a light nose bridge, and blue buttocks, perineum or scrotum was first discovered in 2007. Locally, the monkey is known as Lesula, or world wide with the common name of Owl-Faced Monkey. The white nose bridge or nose stripe is more common in juvenile monkeys.

Cercopithecus hamlyni (Owl-faced monkey) pass through camera set up in bamboo thickets in Kahuzi-Biega National Park.

See Cercopithecus hamlyni at …
00:59
01:51
03:00
04:00
05:17 (good view of face)
05:43 (eating)
5:50 (scratching)
6:06 (“Big Daddy?”)

A Black-fronted Duiker passes through about 00:16.

Cercopithecus hamlyni is an The Old World monkey in a super family classification with baboons — native to Africa and Asia today, inhabiting a range of environments from tropical rain forest to savanna, shrubland and mountainous terrain, and are also known from Europe in the fossil record. However, a (possibly introduced) free-roaming group of monkeys still survives in Gibraltar (Europe) to this day.

Kahuzi-Biega National Park is in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, 50 km west of the town of Bukavu in the Kivu Region, near the western side of Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border. The park is one of the last refuges of the rare Eastern Lowland Gorilla — only about 600 remain on the range after being largely killed off by wars and conflicts of humans.

Ongoing brutal conflicts in the region threaten other species of monkeys. The battles involving rebels, Uganda and Rwanda have been associated with reports of human deaths as high as 45,000. The Mbuti, indigenous group of people from the Congo, have reported they have been hunted down and eaten like game animals by invaders of their homeland.


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Kahuzi-Biéga National Park Democratic Republic of the Congo (2°30′0″S 28°45′0″E)


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Kahuzi-Biéga National Park Democratic Republic of the Congo (2°30′0″S 28°45′0″E)



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