Rare new Tanzania monkey "at risk of extinction"
NAIROBI (Reuters) - A new species of Tanzanian monkey is threatened with extinction just two years after it was formally identified, conservationists have warned.
The rare "kipunji" monkey was first spotted in the country's remote Udzungwa Mountains and Southern Highlands, becoming the first new genus of a living primate from Africa to be discovered in 83 years.
A census published this month found just 1,117 individuals restricted to only 6.82 square miles of forest in the two isolated areas, which are both severely degraded by illegal logging and agriculture.
The species itself is also targeted by poachers.
"The kipunji is hanging on by the thinnest of threads," Tim Davenport, Tanzania country director for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), said in a statement late on Monday.
"We must do all we can to safeguard this extremely rare and little understood species while there is still time."
The WCS wants the monkey classified as "critically endangered", meaning it is threatened with extinction in the wild if immediate conservation action is not taken.
Rare and shy, the elusive Rungwecebus kipunji was identified only by photographs until a farmer trapped one and it died, allowing scientists to get a close look.
DNA analysis revealed in 2006 that the species was the first entirely new primate genus to be discovered since 1923.
An adult kipunji is about 3 feet tall with a long tail, long grayish-brown fur, a black face, hands and feet.
Adults make a loud, low-pitched "honk-bark" call. They live in mountainside trees at heights of up to 8,000 feet (2,400 meters) and eat leaves, shoots, flowers, bark, fruit, lichen, moss and invertebrates.
WCS said its population estimate, published in the journal Oryx, was the result of more than 2,800 hours of field work.
The group said it was helping fund the protection and restoration of the kipunji's existing habitat, as well as educating local people to protect the remaining primates.
(Editing by Robert Hart)
