Blue Monkey
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| Blue Monkey Conservation status: Lower risk (lc) | ||||||||||||||
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| Cercopithecus mitis Wolf, 1822 |
The Blue Monkey or Diademed Monkey (Cercopithecus mitis) is a species of guenon native to various parts of east, central and southern Africa, including the Congo River basin.
Several subspecies are recognised. They include:
- Blue Monkey Cercopithecus mitis mitis, found in Malawi
- Cercopithecus mitis heymansi
- Cercopithecus mitis schoutedeni
- Stuhlmann's Monkey Cercopithecus mitis stuhlmanni
- Cercopithecus mitis elgonis
- Cercopithecus mitis botourlinii
- Cercopithecus mitis opitsthosticus
At times some of these have been regarded as full species, while others are not recognised by all authorities as deserving subspecific status and still others have been elevated to species. The name Samango is sometimes applied to several subspecies, particularly C. m. mitis.
Despite their name, Blue Monkeys are not noticeably blue: they have little hair on their faces, and this does sometimes give a blue appearance, but they never have the vivid blue appearance of a mandrill, for example. The fur is short, and mainly a grizzled brown colour apart from the face (which is dark with a pale or yellowish patch on the forehead - the "diadem" from which the species derives its common name) and the mantle, which varies between subspecies. Typical sizes are from 50 to 65 cm in length (not including the tail, which is almost as long as the rest of the animal), with females weighing a little over 4kg and males up to 8kg.
All subspecies are found in rain forest and montane bamboo forest, and live largely in the forest canopy, coming to the ground rarely. They are very dependent on humid, shady areas with plenty of water. They eat mainly fruit and leaves, but will take some slower-moving invertebrates. They prefer to live in tall trees which provide both food and shelter, and are therefore, like almost all guenons, suffering from the loss of their natural habitat. Where pine plantations replace natural forest the monkeys may be treated as a threat by foresters, since they sometimes strip the bark from exotic trees in a search for food or moisture. They are also hunted for bushmeat.
Their mating system is polygynous, and there is a corresponding sexual dimorphism in size, with the males substantially the larger sex. Females normally give birth every two years, during the onset of the warm, rainy season; gestation is around 5 months and the infants are born with fur and with their eyes open. Group sizes range from 10 to 40, containing only a single adult male. They are often found in groups with other species of monkeys such as Red-tailed Monkeys and Red Colobus Monkeys.