Deep in the Congo rainforest, Edward McLester witnessed a spectacle few scientists have seen: a troop of golden-bellied mangabeys (Cercocebus chrysogaster) causing a ruckus, their vibrant underbellies flashing through the understory. “Walking through the forest dozens of kilometers from the nearest person and surrounded by 70-odd large monkeys on the ground all screaming and whooping and heading in the same direction was an incomparable experience,” McLester, a conservation biologist at the University of Southampton in the U.K., told Mongabay. Golden-bellied mangabeys are one of Africa’s least-known and most threatened monkeys. As their name suggests, these monkeys sport a striking golden-yellow to orange-gold belly, a feature unique among mangabeys. Adults typically weigh between 8 and 15 kilograms (18 and 33 pounds), with males being larger than females. A group of golden-bellied mangabeys (Cercocebus chrysogaster) in the wild, near Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo courtesy of Edward McLester / Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. In 2020, and McLester and his team set out to conduct one of the first detailed studies of these primates in the wild at the LuiKotale study site in the buffer zone of Salonga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although outside the official protected area, the four villages that inhabit the area have committed to not hunt south of the Lokoro River to protect the bonobos (Pan paniscus) and other animals there. Golden-bellied mangabeys form extraordinarily large troops of dozens of individuals. McLester’s observations reveal a complex social structure…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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South Africa Today – Environment
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