The agile mangabey is an Old World monkey

Old World monkey

The Old World monkeys or Cercopithecidae are a group of primates, falling in the superfamily Cercopithecoidea in the clade Catarrhini. The Old World monkeys are native to Africa and Asia today, inhabiting a range of environments from tropical rain forest to savanna, shrubland and mountainous...

 of the white-eyelid mangabey

White-eyelid mangabey

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...

 group found in swampy forests of Central Africa

Central Africa

Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....

 in Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea where the capital Malabo is situated.Annobón is the southernmost island of Equatorial Guinea and is situated just south of the equator. Bioko island is the northernmost point of Equatorial Guinea. Between the two islands and to the...

, Cameroon

Cameroon

Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...

, Gabon

Gabon

Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...

, Central African Republic

Central African Republic

The Central African Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It borders Chad in the north, Sudan in the north east, South Sudan in the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo in the south, and Cameroon in the west. The CAR covers a land area of about ,...

, Republic of Congo, and DR Congo. Until 1978, it was considered a subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 of the Tana River mangabey

Tana River Mangabey

The Tana River mangabey is a highly endangered species of primate in the Cercopithecidae family. Some authorities have included the taxa agilis and sanjei as subspecies of this species, while others award these full species status.It is endemic to riverine forest patches along the lower Tana River...

 (C. galeritus). More recently, the golden-bellied mangabey

Golden-bellied Mangabey

The golden-bellied mangabey is a social Old World monkey found in swampy, humid forests south of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was previously considered a subspecies of the agile mangabey .-References:...

 (C. chrysogaster) has been considered a separate species instead of a subspecies of the agile mangabey.

Physical characteristics

The agile mangabey has a short, overall dull olive-grey pelage. The bare skin of the face and feet is blackish. Males are 51–65 centimeters (20–26 in) in length and weigh about 7–13 kilograms (15–29 lb), while the smaller females are 44–55 centimeters (17–22 in) and weigh 5–7 kilograms (11–15 lb).

Behavior

Similar to other mangabeys, they are diurnal. Although generally arboreal, they do spend a significant portion of their time (12–22%) on the ground, especially during the dry season. It is typically more commonly heard than seen, and males have a loud, species-specific call that is believed to be used to space themselves out. Other calls are also used to maintain group cohesion and warn of predators. Group size can be as high as 18 members, led by a single adult male. Group meetings can be friendly and may involve exchange of members. Adult males not in groups often travel singly.

Diet

Fruit makes up a major portion of the agile mangabey diet. They are known to eat at least 42 different species of fruit. Their tooth structure and powerful jaws allows them to open tough pods and fruits that many other monkeys can not access. Agile mangabeys eat from a number of dominant swamp-forest trees, including dika nuts

Irvingia

Irvingia is a genus of African and Southeast Asian trees in the family Irvingiaceae, sometimes known by the common names wild mango, African mango, or bush mango...

 and sugar plums, when they are fruiting. They also eat fresh leaf shoots from raffia palms

Raffia palm

The Raffia palms are a genus of twenty species of palms native to tropical regions of Africa, especially Madagascar, with one species also occurring in Central and South America. They grow up to 16 m tall and are remarkable for their compound pinnate leaves, the longest in the plant kingdom;...

 when fruits are scarce. Grass

Grass

Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

es and mushroom

Mushroom

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...

s, as well as insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s, other invertebrates, bird's eggs and some vertebrate prey, such as rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....

s, are also eaten.

Other

Agile mangabeys are known to contract T-cell leukemia

Leukemia

Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...

 virus

Virus

A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...

, similar to the leukemia virus that infects humans. There is also evidence that they contract Simian immunodeficiency virus

Simian immunodeficiency virus

Simian immunodeficiency virus , also known as African Green Monkey virus and also as Monkey AIDS is a retrovirus able to infect at least 33 species of African primates...

 (SIV), a virus related to human HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

 that infects certain ape

Ape

Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...

s and monkey

Monkey

A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...

s. They have rarely been kept in captivity, with only three individuals held in ISIS

International Species Information System

-External links:*...

registered institutions in July 2008.