Tana River red colobus[1] | |
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Conservation status | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Primates |
Family: | Cercopithecidae |
Genus: | Procolobus |
Species: | P. rufomitratus |
Binomial name | |
Procolobus rufomitratus (Peters, 1879) |
The Tana River red colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus), also called the eastern red colobus, is a highly endangered species of primate in the Cercopithecidae family. It is endemic to a narrow zone of gallery forest near the Tana River in southeastern Kenya. As all red colobuses, it was formerly considered a subspecies of a widespread P. badius.[3]
The Tana River red colobus has been considered one of The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates.[4][5] It was, together with the equally endangered Tana River mangabey, the main reason for the creation of the Tana River Primate Reserve in 1978,[6] but human encroachment within this reserve continues.[7] 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.[8] Contra Groves,[1] it was not recognized as a species separate from the Ugandan, Central African and Thollon's red colobus in the 2008 IUCN Red List. With these as subspecies, P. rufomitratus is considered to be of least concern in the 2008 IUCN Red List,[9] while P. (r.) rufomitratus is considered endangered.[2]
Colobus monkeys eat mostly leaves from a limited number of tree species. They supplement this bulky cellulose diet with occasional unripe fruit, moss and seeds. Human food is of no interest to these leaf specialists. Their stomach is large and has three chambers. It carries a specific bacterium which helps to ferment and digest the leaves. They eat about 2 or 3 kilograms of leaves a day. Sometimes they eat soil, clay and charcoal to help digest toxins and toxic leaves. Because of the poor nutritional quality of their food they must browse intensively for many hours each day looking for food, and spend much of the remainder of the day resting in order to aid digestion.
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