Spotting African monkeys can be a highlight of any safari, providing hours of fascination with their mischievous - and at times almost human-like - behavior. According to the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group there are 216 species of primates living in Africa today - 111 on the mainland and 105 found only in Madagascar. These African primates range in size from the smallest known prosimian to the largest apes found anywhere in the world.
Africa's Old World monkeys include groups such as baboon, colobus, drill, gelada, guenon, mandrill, and macaque. The monkeys of Africa tend to live in large troops, sometimes numbering several hundred strong.
What exactly is an African monkey? The term ‘monkey’ is generally accepted to mean two groups of primates - New World monkeys and Old World monkeys. These two groups are different to each other in many ways, with New World monkeys living in Central and South America vs Old World monkeys living anywhere else in the world. Apes and Old World monkeys are both groups of primates, having diverged some 25 million years ago. The easiest way to tell the difference between a monkey and an ape is to check whether they have a tail - almost all monkeys have tails, whilst apes do not.
There are many species of monkeys with black coloring, but some are partly black. Let's explore some of these fascinating creatures.
Mandrill
The biggest African monkey in the world is the Mandrill, but it is closely followed by its closest relation: The shy Drill monkey that lives in West Africa. Their more colorful cousin, the Mandrill is the one most seen in zoos. Mandrill monkey populations are growing less as they are often hunted for bushmeat.
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Mandrills are reclusive monkeys that live only in the rain forests of equatorial Africa. One of the most colourful African monkeys. Mandrill males are dominant if their colours are bright, as soon as they fade, the females begin looking for a new male to breed with. 20 of them are usually females he can breed with.
Colobus Monkeys
The Angolan colobus is mainly a black monkey, also known as an Angolan black or white colobus. They occur in eastern Africa, including Cameroon, Gabon, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, the northern parts of Congo, and the northeastern parts of Zaire. Furthermore, they like to live in dense rainforests, lowlands, bamboo forests, and mountains.
Angolan colobus monkeys are medium-sized and have long tails and thin bodies. Also, they are primarily black with contrasting white hair on their tails and shoulders. Their lifespan is between 20 to 30 years in the wild, and they eat things like bark, stems, shoots, leaves, and fruit.
The black colobus, also known as satanic black colobus, is a species of Old-World monkey in the Colobus genus. The black colobus is the oldest of the 5 recognized species in the genus Colobus and is said to have diverged 3 to 4 million years ago.
Other Notable African Monkeys
Baboons are some of the world’s largest monkeys, found across sub-Saharan Africa. They generally prefer savanna and semi-arid habitats, though are occasionally found in tropical forests.
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The golden monkey is critically endangered and found only in the Virunga volcanic mountains of Central Africa, spread across Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Also known as the white-throated monkey, the Samango monkey is found in forests between Ethiopia and South Africa.
The Zanzibar red colobus is a unique species of colobus monkey endemic to several islands on the Zanzibar Archipelago, off the coast of Tanzania These medium-sized monkeys are herbivores that specialize in eating leaves, which form the bulk of their diet.
Closely related to the red colobus, these stunning primates are found in Kenya’s coastal forests and high-country inland areas. They are highly arboreal monkeys that live in mixed-sex groups of up to 15 individuals.
It’s highly unlikely you’ll manage to see a Hamlyn’s monkey as they are exceedingly rare, living in bamboo and primary rainforest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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The blue monkey - also known as the diademed monkey after the pale crown of hair across its forehead - is not actually blue, but rather speckled grey.
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Vervet monkeys are adaptable animals found in both rural and urban environments across Southern and East Africa. Their natural habitat is savanna, woodlands, and mountains up to 4,000 meters.
These wise-looking monkeys with orange foreheads and white bears are endemic to the swamp forests across Central Africa, from Ethiopia to Angola.
The Agile Mangabey is another Old-World monkey of the White-Eylid Mangabey group mainly found in swampy forests. Agile Mangabeys are some of the world’s most endangered and rare monkeys. All mangabeys have tails that are longer than their bodies, which helps them balance as they jump from tree to tree.
They can live up to 20 years in the wild. Also, Agile Mangabeys are social animals, so they will stay in troops and move together. Young mangabeys are generally darker in color than adults. These monkeys communicate by using exciting sounds, as it can be hard to see each other in the dense forests where they live. They can be very noisy.
They have a special throat sac that gives them a booming voice, and the males have larger sacs than the females. Additionally, they use a shrieking alarm call to alert others to danger. Mangabeys have powerful jaws and teeth that assist them in cracking hard shells or nuts and biting into thick-skinned fruit. Also, they like to tear bark from trees to find bugs and spiders that hide underneath.
The Patas African monkeys which has other names like wadi or hussar monkey, is an old world species with a habitat range from West to Central to East Africa. They are, however, much more in population in West Africa. They are the world’s fastest primate with a speed of about 54m/h. They are sexually dimorphic - males are bigger with brighter colours than females.
