Endangered
Dryas monkey
Chlorocebus dryas
Dryas monkey is an Old World monkey in the family Cercopithecidae (order Primates) — Chlorocebus dryas, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
An adult male Dryas monkey is characterized by its black muzzle, white whiskers, and short, white facial beard. The dorsal surface of its body, along with the coronal crown, is a grayish chestnut color. This species also has white on the ventral side of its body, tail, the bottom portion of the limbs, and the buttocks.
Body size varies from 40 to 55 cm, with a tail an additional 50–75 cm. Adults weigh between 4 and 7 kg, with marked sexual dimorphism.
Range and habitat
The Dryas monkey, also known as Salonga monkey, ekele, or inoko, is a little-known species of Old World monkey found only in the Congo Basin, restricted to the left bank of the Congo River.
The community-managed Kokolopori Reserve in the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo was initially considered a key to its survival and the only conservation efforts for the species.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The diet of the Dryas is said to be made up of mostly plant foods, among them fruits, young leaves, and flowers.
In crisis
While the Dryas monkey had been considered data deficient, evidence suggests it is very rare and its total population possibly numbers fewer than 200 individuals. Consequently, its status was changed to critically endangered in the 2008 IUCN Red List. Even so, in January 2019 the IUCN status was changed to endangered following the discovery of this species at eight locations in Lomami National Park.
The IUCN estimates only 200 individuals are left, although because the species is rarely spotted, an actual number is not known, leading this species to be listed as critically endangered. Some reasons include: poaching of the species for meat, habitat loss due to logging and other human activity, and the lack of information and knowledge of this species makes them more susceptible to dangers.
Dryas monkey is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Dryas monkey, Wikidata item Q117256753. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
