The crested mangabeys are West African

Old World The "Old World" () is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously ...

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

s belonging to the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

''Lophocebus''. They tend to have dark skin, eyelids that match their facial skin, and crests of hair on their heads. Another genus of

mangabey Mangabeys are West African Old World monkeys, with species in three of the six genera of tribe Papionini. The more typical representatives of '' Cercocebus'', also known as the white-eyelid mangabeys, are characterized by their bare, upper eyel ...

s, ''

Cercocebus The white-eyelid mangabeys are African Old World monkeys belonging to the genus ''Cercocebus''. They are characterized by their bare upper eyelids, which are lighter than their facial skin colouring, and the uniformly coloured hairs of the fur. T ...

'', was once thought to be very closely related, so much so that all the species were placed in one genus. However, ''Lophocebus'' species are now understood to be more closely related to the

baboon Baboons are primates comprising the biology, genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys, in the family Cercopithecidae. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow ba ...

s in genus ''Papio'', while the ''Cercocebus'' species are more closely related to the

mandrill The mandrill (''Mandrillus sphinx'') is a large Old World monkey native to west central Africa. It is one of the most colorful mammals in the world, with red and blue skin on its face and posterior. The species is Sexual dimorphism, sexually ...

. In 2006, the

highland mangabey The kipunji (''Rungwecebus kipunji''), also known as the highland mangabey, is a species of Old World monkey that lives in the highland forests of Tanzania. It was independently described by researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the ...

was moved from ''Lophocebus'' to a new genus, ''

Rungwecebus The kipunji (''Rungwecebus kipunji''), also known as the highland mangabey, is a species of Old World monkey that lives in the highland forests of Tanzania. It was independently described by researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the ...

''.

Species

There are two species in this genus, with a total of six subspecies. In 2007,

Colin Groves Colin Peter Groves (24 June 1942 – 30 November 2017) was a British-Australian biologist and anthropologist. Groves was professor of biological anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Education Born in Englan ...

described a new subspecies and elevated the ''L. albigena'' subspecies to full species level, but the elevation was not widely accepted.

References

Sources

External links

Primate Info Net ''Lophocebus'' Factsheets
. Papionini Taxa named by Theodore Sherman Palmer {{oldworld-monkey-stub