In 2012, the description of a new monkey species from the Congo Basin with an unforgettable, humanlike countenance made global news. Now, a camera trap study reveals how the lesula (Cercopithecus lomamiensis) has carved out a unique niche on the forest floor. The lesula is a slender, medium-sized monkey with a long tail, found only in a remote part of the Congo Basin called the Tshuapa, Lomami and Lualaba Rivers Landscape, or TL2, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Though long known to local people, the species had remained unknown to science until research teams with the Lukuru Foundation’s TL2 Project, photographed an individual during surveys of the area. Taxonomic and genetic analysis showed that the lesula was a type of guenon monkey (genus Cercopithecus), the most species-rich group of African primates. Little was known definitively about the lesula’s ecology or behavior when it was first described, but there were already tantalizing hints that the lesula might be quite different from the other mostly arboreal species of guenon monkeys in the landscape. An adult lesula monkey. New primate discoveries are extremely rare, and when the lesula was first described and introduced to the world in 2012, it was only the second new African primate discovered in 28 years. The lesula is only found in the central Lomami Basin in central Democratic Republic of the Congo, and is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Image by Florida Atlantic University Now, using camera traps, researchers have found that the…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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