GoKawiilNew-ish monkeys: This pair of colobus monkeys (Colobus congoensis) belong to a new species discovered by scientists in the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). However, local people have known about the species for decades, calling them “Likweli” or “kasaba nkoni”. The monkeys are shy and elusive, hiding in the canopy of the forest between the Lomami and Lilo rivers in the DRC. They have distinctive orange lips, which flare out when they make sounds called roars, which are punctuated by short snorts. Conservationists first spotted the unidentified monkeys in 2008, but a second sighting in 2018 led to a dedicated expedition to document them. The findings of the expedition were published this month in PLOS One.
Credit: Daniel Rosengren/Frankfurt Zoological Society