Red-tailed Monkey Facts

(Last Updated On: March 4, 2022)

The red-tailed monkey, often known as the black-cheeked white-nosed monkey, red-tailed guenon, redtail monkey, or Schmidt’s guenon, scientific name Cercopithecus ascanius is a species of primate within the household Cercopithecidae.

It’s present in Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and presumably Burundi. The red-tailed monkey is normally black, crimson, or orange.

Though native to this area, it has unfolded north and south in addition to it could possibly survive in several habitats and below totally different circumstances.

It’s a distinct creature in its habitats and is step by step changing into endangered as a consequence of deforestation and over-exploitation via searching and predation.

Red-tailed monkey Taxonomy and classification

All primates are inside the class Mammalia as a result of distinguishing options of all mammals resembling mammary glands, hair, and placental supply of younger.

Primates are then within the Order Primates which is separated into two Sub-orders, Haplorhini and Strepsorhini.

Sub-order Haplorhini is characterized by having a dry nostril and nostrils which are oval in form whereas sub-order Strepsorhini has moist noses with nostrils which are elliptical in form.

The red-tailed guenon is inside the sub-order Haplorhini which is separated into two parvorders. Parvorder Catarrhini is the Old World monkeys and parvorder Platyrrhini is New World monkeys.

Purple-tailed monkeys are inside the Parvorder Catarrhini and have nostrils that time downward which differs from the Platyrrhini which have nostrils that time to the perimeters. The general classification of the red-tailed monkey is:

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Chordata
Class Mammalia
Order Primates
Sub-order Haplorhini
Parvorder Catarrhini
Family Cercopithecidae
Genus Cercopithecus
Subspecies ascanius ascanius
Subspecies ascanius atrinasus
Subspecies ascanius katangae
Subspecies ascanius whitesidei
Subspecies ascanius schmidti

Red-tailed monkey Distinguishing features

The species Cercopthecus Ascanius in an arboreal habitat in Uganda, Africa. The red-tailed monkey is known as because it sounds, for its crimson coloration of the tail’s underside in addition to the bi-coloration of the tail because the reddish coloration will increase from the bottom to the tip.

There are different options attribute to this mammal as effectively such because of the white nostril and cheeks within the midst of black or darkish gray body fur.

Purple-tailed monkeys even have very massive, elastic cheeks that are utilized in gathering meals and storing it of their mouths for security.

Red-tailed monkey Size

Sizes of their our bodies vary between people in addition to between the sexes as males are bigger than the females.

Physique size ranges from 1 to 2 foot (12-24 inches), without the tail included, males being on the higher finish of the size and females being on the decrease.

Grownup males additionally weigh between 7 and 10 kilos and females weigh barely much less between 6 and eight kilos.

The tail size can attain as much as 35 inches lengthy which will be twice the physique size for some red-tailed monkeys. The tail helps the monkeys obtain stability.

Behavior

Communication and vocalization

Purple-tailed monkeys talk utilizing totally different strategies that are attributed to speaking particular behaviors or issues.

Bodily and vocal communication is used between members of social teams of those monkeys to exhibit social dominance, submissiveness, or greeting.

Vocal communication is used between members of social teams of red-tailed monkeys wherein the extra submissive monkey will make a mushy, oscillating name to its elder.

Bodily communication is exhibited in nostril to nostril greetings the place two red-tailed guenons contact their noses collectively. This can be a signal of affection and will be adopted by playful habits.

Visible communication is used as an indication of warning to others to remain away and as protection towards predators. Purple-tailed monkeys follow staring or staring with their mouth open.

When these monkeys implement staring, they carry their eyebrows to retract the pores and skin on their brow which makes the pores and skin on the face develop backward revealing the beneath of their eyelids.

On the darkish fur background, their eyelids will be seen very simply by others and perceive it as a show that the red-tailed monkey is being threatened and the opposite species wants to remain away. Head-bobbing is one other menace show wherein the monkey strikes its head up and down.

Most of this communication can be utilized individually or collectively relying on how threatened the monkey feels to its environment.

Different forms of communication are used resembling chemical and olfactory communication; nevertheless, not a lot of info is out there on this sort of communication.

Feeding habits

Purple-tailed monkeys are primarily fructivorous, however, they are thought of omnivorous as a result of they may eat leaves, flowers, or bugs in occasions the place fruit is scarce. As they forage, these monkeys collect their findings within the expandable cheeks of their mouths.

The pouches will maintain a considerable amount of meals the place they’ll forage in a single space after which carry their meals away to a different location the place it’s protected to eat without the specter of one other stealing from them.

Purple-tailed monkeys are social primates that type teams that may vary in dimension from 7 to 30 people. The teams consist of 1 dominant male and females and their offspring, male or feminine juveniles.

Teams typically keep collectively via all intervals of the day and thru life, apart from males who attain maturity.

These males will depart the group they have been born into and go on to type all-male teams with different red-tailed monkey males or survive alone till they’ll change the dominant male of a unique social group.

The females follow allomaternal care wherein the varied females in a bunch will assist handle their very own younger in addition to the younger of different females within the group.

Usually, the totally different social teams will congregate for assist from one another when meals are limitless and in abundance.

Activity and habitat

Purple-tailed monkeys are lively within the early morning and night which is characterized as diurnal exercise.

They act as essential seed dispersers as they acquire fruit and different meals gadgets. Their dispersal is all through the tropical forest of in East and Central Africa ranging to Kenya and lots of areas of the Congo.

The red-tailed monkey species is categorized in acknowledged subspecies and these subspecies have totally different ranges, the subspecies C. a. schmidti having the widest distribution from Congo into international locations of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda and the subspecies C. a. atrinasus having the smallest distribution restricted to an area habitat of Zovo, Angola.

They’re primarily arboreal however will come to the bottom. Within the timber, they’re very lively and journey at larger speeds than being on the bottom.

On the bottom, they journey quadrupedally, on all 4 legs. Whereas they present a dominating desire for being arboreal in exercise and the place they select to relax, they forage on the bottom, and consequently, they spend a sufficient quantity of their time on the forest flooring as effectively.

Reproduction

Like all placental mammals, red-tailed monkeys produce viviparous younger. They have an inclination to solely give delivery to a single younger per mating season.

Their mating system is characterized as polygynous which means that one male mates with a number of females and is a standard sight in mammals as a consequence of the benefits of the grouped social system.

Probably the most outstanding and profitable mating season is from the month of November extending into the month of February; nevertheless, breeding can happen all through the course of a complete 12 months.

In some research, it has been seen that the red-tailed monkey will interbreed and hybridize with one other species in its genus: the blue monkey (C. mitis).

The hybrids have been seen on the terrestrial island of Gombe, Tanzania, and this hybridization might serve a significant function within the copy of each of the red-tailed and blue monkey species, and fairly presumably, produce a brand new species sooner or later.

Conservation status

Conservation efforts for the red-tailed monkey are of “least concern” as listed by the IUCN Purple Checklist of Threatened Species.

This has been justified as a result of this species of monkey is situated at many various habitats all through the Congo and all through East-Central Africa. Additionally, the species is sort of plentiful in these areas they usually have a median lifespan of about 28 years.

The red-tailed monkey is a topic to predation by topped eagles, wild cats, and infrequently, people and chimpanzees.

Regardless of the effect of predation on their inhabitants, no main menace to this species when it comes to endangerment is posed, though some areas of their habitat undergo from deforestation and searching strain as effectively.

Red-tailed Monkey Facts – Guenon | Colobus