Critically Endangered
Tana River mangabey
Cercocebus galeritus
Tana River mangabey is an Old World monkey in the family Cercopithecidae (order Primates) — Cercocebus galeritus, recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to Kenya.
Appearance
The Tana River mangabey is a medium-sized primate with a long semiprehensile tail, a yellow-brown coat, and a center part on the crown of the head with long, dark fur. The species has white eyelids that contrast to its darker face like other Cercocebus species.
Range and habitat
The Tana River mangabey is found in the southeastern portion of Kenya along the Tana River, within 27 forest fragments along a 60 km stretch of floodplain forests. The gallery forest along the Tana River is home to several primate species - the Tana River mangabey, Tana River red colobus, blue monkey, yellow baboon, vervet monkey, and two species of bush babies. This species is restricted to riverine gallery forests in this area.
This species was, together with the equally endangered Tana River red colobus, the main reason for the creation of the Tana River Primate Reserve in 1978, but human encroachment within this reserve continues. The Tana River Primate Reserve was established in 1976 to protect the remaining forest along the Tana River and the endemic Tana River mangabey.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The Tana River mangabey is diurnal and semiterrestrial. Foraging ranges for different groups extend, and considerable overlap occurs between the different groups.
If a group loses one of its males, another male may be recruited from peripheral solitary males to maintain the structure of the group. Recently, it has been suggested that 20,000 hectares of the Tana River Delta should be transformed into sugarcane plantations, but this has, temporarily at least, been stopped by the High Court of Kenya.
In crisis
It is threatened by habitat loss and degradation, that has increased in recent years. One of the greatest threats to endangered species is habitat loss. The Tana River mangabey is listed as one of The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates.
A 1994 census estimated the species' population to be 1,000 to 1,200 individuals. Endangered Species Act as being endangered in 1970.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Tana River mangabey is Critically 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 Tana River mangabey, Wikidata item Q547982. 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.
