Wednesday, August 19, 2026
Science

Orange lips and roaring calls: Meet the DRC's shy new rainforest monkey

There are 536 species of monkeys in the world today, and the Democratic Republic of Congo has a new one. Named Likweli, this rainforest primate is one of only five new African monkey species described in the past 75 years. Despite its distinctive orange lips, it has been spotted by locals only a few...

Orange lips and roaring calls: Meet the DRC's shy new rainforest monkey
Image: Phys.org
There are 536 species of monkeys in the world today, and the Democratic Republic of Congo has a new one. Named Likweli, this rainforest primate is one of only five new African monkey species described in the past 75 years. Despite its distinctive orange lips, it has been spotted by locals only a few times since 2008. It took doctoral student of biological sciences Junior Amboko (who named the new monkey) and an international team that included anthropologist Kate Detwiler years of searching on foot and by canoe, as well as field observations, photographs, audio recordings, genetic analysis and anatomical analysis, to prove that Likweli was a species new to science. They explain their search.

Originally published at Phys.org

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