Miss Waldron’s red colobus, scientific name Piliocolobus waldronae is a species of the red colobus native to West Africa. This article will give an overview of Miss Waldron’s red colobus monkey, extinct, description.
Miss Waldron’s red colobus
It had beforehand been described as a subspecies of the western red colobus, P. badius. It has not been formally sighted since 1978 and was thought-about extinct in 2000.
Nevertheless, new proof suggests {that a} very small variety of these monkeys could also be dwelling within the southeast nook of Côte d’Ivoire. The IUCN Red List notes Miss Waldron’s red colobus as critically endangered.
Miss Waldron’s red colobus was found in December 1933 by Willoughby P. Lowe, a British Museum (Pure Historical past) collector who had shot eight specimens of the animal. Lowe named it after a fellow museum worker, Miss F. Waldron, a colleague on the expedition.
Description
Black fur covers the vast majority of Miss Waldron’s red colobus, however, a particular sample of vivid red fur could be discovered on its brow and thighs, permitting it to be distinguished from conspecifics.
A Previous World monkey, it grows to a top of about three ft (1 m), with a head that’s small for its body. No {photograph} of a dwelling Miss Waldron’s red colobus is thought to exist.
Ecology and status
Excessive-canopy forests (rainforests) in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire function the unique habitat of Miss Waldron’s red colobus.
The monkey often shaped massive household teams of 20 or extra. It’s a social and extremely vocal animal, ceaselessly speaking with others utilizing loud calls, shrieks, and chattering. Its technique for security is determined by utilizing the various eyes and ears of the group.
Fruit, seeds, and foliage present the first food supply of Miss Waldron’s red colobus.
The western red colobus ceaselessly is hunted and eaten by bigger carnivores, together with widespread chimpanzees (particularly western chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes verus, within the vary of P. b. waldronae), leopards, pythons, eagles, and people.
Population
The final time a primatologist noticed the Miss Waldron’s was again in 1978. Conservationists did contemplate the species extinct for a brief interval, however that modified after a hunter turned up with a not too long ago killed monkey in 2002.
After that some colobus calls have been reportedly heard in 2008, however, the creatures haven’t been seen or heard from since.
Is there nonetheless hope of discovering Miss Waldron’s red colobus?
International Wildlife Conservation is on the lookout for it proper now, as a part of its Seek for Misplaced Collection tasks.
“We’re going to present it one other two or three years of intense surveying, a minimum of,” says Mittermeier.
And there’s really a superb cause not to surrender: One other misplaced species, the Bouvier’s red colobus (P. bouvieri), was rediscovered simply 4 years in the past when researchers discovered a small group of monkeys — together with a feminine and toddler — within the Republic of Congo. Earlier than that nobody had seen the species in additional than 50 years.
The precise variety of red colobus species has by no means been settled upon — it could possibly be as excessive as 18 or 20 — however, the IUCN Red List has assessed the extinction threat for 13 Piliocolobus species. 4 are listed as critically endangered, with one other seven assessed as endangered. Nearly all have ongoing declines in their populations.
Threats
It’s not simply people searching red colobus. They’re additionally a favorite prey of chimpanzees in locations the place the species’ ranges overlap.
Add habitat loss onto that searching stress, and there’s not a lot alternative for any red colobus species, specifically the Miss Waldron’s.
“There are not numerous habitats left,” says Mittermeier of the state of affairs in Côte d’Ivoire, the place the latest deforestation risk has come from the cocoa trade.
For different red colobus species, deforestation and habitat fragmentation have created new dangers, together with malnutrition and parasites.
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