Red Colobus Monkey

Red colobus monkeys (genus Procolobus or Piliocolobus) live along the equator in Africa. They come in many different colors in addition to the reddish black that gives them their name. They often have whitish or grayish faces and chests, with the deep red color appearing only on their back, crown of the head, paws, and tip of the tail. This color variety has made these monkeys difficult to classify, and there is considerable disagreement in their grouping. Red colobus monkeys have a head and body length of 17.7-26.4 in (45-67 cm), a tail length of 20.5-31.5 in (52-80 cm), and weigh 11.2-24.9 lb (5.1-11.3 kg). These monkeys have no thumb at all, lacking even the small vestigial thumb seen in black and white colobus monkeys.

Red colobus monkeys are also arboreal. Most populations are found in rain forests
, but they also inhabit savanna woodland, mangrove swamps, and floodplains. Red colobus monkeys also form stable groups, but the groups are much larger than those formed by black and white colobus monkeys-ranging in size from 12 to 82 with an average size of 50. These groups usually include several adult males and 1.5-3 times as many adult females. There is a dominance hierarchy within the group maintained by aggressive behavior, but rarely by physical fighting. Higher ranking individuals have priority access to food, space, and grooming. Read more .........Science.jrank

More on the monkey: AWF, Zanzibar, National Geographic, WWF, itech.fgcu.edu, Wikipedia, primate-sg, theprimata, petermaas

Image: Science Daily

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