Mantled Guereza
Encyclopedia
The mantled guereza also known simply as the guereza, the eastern black-and-white colobus, or the Abyssinian black-and-white colobus, is a black and white colobus monkey, a kind of Old World monkey
. It is native to much of west central and east Africa
, including Cameroon
, Equatorial Guinea
, Nigeria
, Ethiopia
, Kenya
, Tanzania
, Uganda
and Chad
.
, gallery
and upland forests. They are particularly common in forests near river and at high elevations. They can be found in elevations as high as 3300 m (10,826.8 ft). This species prefers forests of secondary growth and chooses them over old growth forests when both are available. It is likely that the guerezas prefer second growth forests due to the greater plant species diversity in some of them and weaker chemical defenses from the plants. Guerezas sometimes visit swamps as well as human-altered habitats such as eucalyptus plantations, which may be visited when the monkeys need to make up for nutritional deficiencies.
. The common chimpanzee
is known to hunt the guereza. The leopard
is a another potential predator.
. The guereza is diurnal, being active during the daytime. It spends most of the day resting. The second most common activity is usually feeding, although traveling is sometimes the second most common. During the day, guerezas have long rest periods in between periods of moving and feeding. Sometime after dawn, guerezas leave their sleeping trees and later return to them at dusk. To a lesser extent, other activities are preformed, including grooming, greeting, playing and being vigilant.
related. Females rarely disperse from their natal groups, expect possibly when they dissolve. Males on the other hand, usually leave as subadults or adults. They may start out being solitary and or in bachelor groups. They gain entry into a social group either by being on the periphery or staging a takeover. Within the main social groups, most interactions tend to be friendly. Allogrooming is an important part of guereza interactions and mostly occurs between females. The adult males rarely groom in the groups. While not strictly territorial, guereza groups can be aggressive towards each other. In some populations, groups may defend core areas, resources and mates. It is the males that participate in agonistic inter-group encounters but female may do so as well. Aggressive encounters between groups usually involve chases, displays and vocalizations rather than physical contact.
trade for $4-9 US. The guereza skins have been sold for fashion or the tourist trade.
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...
. It is native to much of west central and east Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, including 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...
, 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...
, Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
and Chad
Chad
Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
.
Classification
There are several distinct subspecies of this colobus:- Colobus guereza guereza
- Colobus guereza occidentalis
- Colobus guereza dodingae
- Mt. Uarges Guereza or Percival's black-and-white colobus, Colobus guereza percivali
- Colobus guereza matschiei
- Colobus guereza kikuyuensisColobus guereza kikuyuensisThe Eastern black-and-white colobus is a large, tree-dwelling African subspecies of the mantled guereza. The most striking feature of this Old World monkey is its luxurious black coat; ornamented with long fringes of white fur down each side. Babies are pure white in color for the first few weeks...
- Colobus guereza caudatus or Kilimanjaro guereza
Description
The mantled guereza has a distinctive pelage, being mostly black with a white mantle, also known as an ornamentation, and tail tuft. The bands that make up the mantle extend from the shoulders to the hips and connect around the lower torso. The tail tuft varies in how much it takes up along the tail. Subspecies vary in color variations of these features. There is also white hair surrounding the face with the hair between the cheeks being bushy. The thigh has a white stripe. The guereza typically weighs 9.3-13.5 kg (20.5-29.8 lbs) and 7.8-9.2 kg (17.2-20.3 lbs) for males and females respectively. The head and body length averages 61.5 cm (24.2 in) for males and 57.6 cm (22.7 in) for females. Like most colobi, the guereza has a reduced thumb that is rudimentary. There is variation among the subspecies in dental sexual dimorphism. In some, there is lesser difference between those of the males and females, in others, males have larger teeth than females and in others the reverse is true.Range and habitat
The guereza is distributed throughout Equatorial Africa. It ranges from Nigeria and Cameroon in the west though the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo and southern Sudan and into Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and northern Tanzania in the east. Guerezas live in both deciduous and evergreen forests. They mainly inhabit forest and savanna woodlands and often extend into highland and montane forests. They can be found in other forest habitats, both primary and secondary, such as riparianRiparian forest
A riparian forest is a forested area of land adjacent to a body of water such as a river, stream, pond, lake, marshland, estuary, canal, sink or reservoir. -Etymology:...
, gallery
Gallery forest
Gallery forests are evergreen forests that form as corridors along rivers or wetlands and project into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands or deserts....
and upland forests. They are particularly common in forests near river and at high elevations. They can be found in elevations as high as 3300 m (10,826.8 ft). This species prefers forests of secondary growth and chooses them over old growth forests when both are available. It is likely that the guerezas prefer second growth forests due to the greater plant species diversity in some of them and weaker chemical defenses from the plants. Guerezas sometimes visit swamps as well as human-altered habitats such as eucalyptus plantations, which may be visited when the monkeys need to make up for nutritional deficiencies.
Diet and predation
Despite its reputation as a leaf-eater, the guereza is not an obligate folivore. While it mainly eats leaves and fruit, its diet is quite variable. It may consume bark, wood, seeds, flowers, petioles, lianas, aquatic-plants, arthropods, soil and even concrete from buildings The amount of each food item in their diet varies by area and time of year. Leaves usually make up over half of their diet but fruits occasionally predominate. When foraging for leaves, guerezas prefer young ones over old. With fleshy fruits, guerezas prefer to eat them unripe, which may serve to reduce competition with primates that eat ripe fruits. The guereza consumes a number of species but only several make up most of its diet at a specific site. Like all colobi, guerezas are able to digest leaves and other plant fibers with a large, multi-chambered stomach that contains bacteria in certain areas. The main predator of the guereza is the crowned hawk-eagle. Other birds of prey that prey on it include the Verreaux's eagleVerreaux's Eagle
Verreaux's Eagle , alternatively known as the Black Eagle , is a large bird of prey. This eagle lives in hilly and mountaineous regions of southern and eastern Africa , and very locally in Western Asia.- Description :It is long. Males weigh and females weigh...
. The common chimpanzee
Common Chimpanzee
The common chimpanzee , also known as the robust chimpanzee, is a great ape. Colloquially, the common chimpanzee is often called the chimpanzee , though technically this term refers to both species in the genus Pan: the common chimpanzee and the closely related bonobo, formerly called the pygmy...
is known to hunt the guereza. The leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
is a another potential predator.
Activities
This species is primarily arboreal, but does sometimes descend to and travel on the ground, perhaps moreso than most other colobinesColobinae
Colobinae is a subfamily of the Old World monkey family that includes 59 species in 10 genera, including the skunk-like black-and-white colobus, the large-nosed proboscis monkey, and the gray langurs. Some classifications split the colobine monkeys into two tribes, while others split them into...
. The guereza is diurnal, being active during the daytime. It spends most of the day resting. The second most common activity is usually feeding, although traveling is sometimes the second most common. During the day, guerezas have long rest periods in between periods of moving and feeding. Sometime after dawn, guerezas leave their sleeping trees and later return to them at dusk. To a lesser extent, other activities are preformed, including grooming, greeting, playing and being vigilant.
Social structure
Guerezas live in cohesive social groups usually containing of 3-15 memebers. The groups usually contain one male, several females and juveniles. In some populations, groups containing several males are common. In multi-male groups, interactions between males tend to be aggressive with one being dominant. Some males may be forced out of the group. Multi-male groups may contain father-son pairs or unrelated males. Males that are not part of groups either live solitarily or with other 0utside males in bachelor groups. The females and juveniles form the core of the social groups and they are matrilineallyMatrilineality
Matrilineality is a system in which descent is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors. Matrilineality is also a societal system in which one belongs to one's matriline or mother's lineage, which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles.A matriline is a line of descent from a...
related. Females rarely disperse from their natal groups, expect possibly when they dissolve. Males on the other hand, usually leave as subadults or adults. They may start out being solitary and or in bachelor groups. They gain entry into a social group either by being on the periphery or staging a takeover. Within the main social groups, most interactions tend to be friendly. Allogrooming is an important part of guereza interactions and mostly occurs between females. The adult males rarely groom in the groups. While not strictly territorial, guereza groups can be aggressive towards each other. In some populations, groups may defend core areas, resources and mates. It is the males that participate in agonistic inter-group encounters but female may do so as well. Aggressive encounters between groups usually involve chases, displays and vocalizations rather than physical contact.
Reproduction and parenting
The guereza has a polygynous harem-based mating system. Mating solicitations are done both by males and females, half of the time for each. To solicit mating, a guereza will approach its partner and make low-intensity mouth clicks or tough-smacks. During copulation, the males grasps the female’s ankles and trunk from behind. Most copulations take place in the groups but extra-group copulations have been recorded. In multi-male groups, sometimes more than one male can mate with the females. The gestation period lasts 158 days with a 16-22 month interbirth interval. Infants are born with pink skin and white hair. The hair darkens as they age and by 3-4 months they attain adult coloration. Male usually gain their coloration before females. The newborn guereza is dependent on its mother and must cling to her. As they grow older, infants can move on their own and will actively return to their mothers. The infants take up most of the attention in the groups, especially by the females. Multiple females may handle an infant although infants are uncomfortable with females that are not their mothers. The males are mostly uninterested in the infants early on but their interest increases when they are 4-5 weeks. Infants can eat vegetation at about 8-9 weeks and by 50 weeks they are fully weaned and no longer cling to their mothers.Communication
The most notable vocalization of the guereza is the "roar", which is made mainly at night or dawn by males. The sound of a roar can be carried for up to a mile. Only one male in a group will roar, even in multi-male groups. Roars are used for long distance communication. When one male starts roaring, neighboring males will start to roar as well. There is variation is the roars of males which could signal the status of their group and fighting ability. With a roar, a male can advertise his body size; both actual and exaggerated. Other vocalizations are made as well. Males may snort, possibly as an alarm call. "Purrs" are made before group movements. Female and infant may "caw" when under light stress. When in strong stress, females and sub-adults will squeak or scream, particularly when infants are threatened. "Tongue-clicking" is made during mild aggression. In addition to vocalizations, guerezas make several different body postures and movement as well as tactile communications.Conservation status
Because it can use dry and gallery forests and will travel on the ground, the guereza is among the least threatened colobine species. The IUCN lists it as Least Concern because "although locally threatened in parts of its range, this widespread species is not thought to be declining fast enough to place it in a higher category of threat." Unlike most other primate species, the guereza cope with habitat degradation and can thrive in degraded forests. Sometimes, logging may increase the number of preferred food trees for guerezas and the monkeys are more abundant in logged areas than unlogged ones. Nevertheless, complete forest clearings cause their numbers to decline as was the cause in Uganda. Guerezas are also threatened by hunting/harvesting for their meat and skins. Guereza meat has been sold on the bushmeatBushmeat
Bushmeat initially referred to the hunting of wild animals in West and Central Africa and is a calque from the French viande de brousse. Today the term is commonly used for meat of terrestrial wild animals, killed for subsistence or commercial purposes throughout the humid tropics of the Americas,...
trade for $4-9 US. The guereza skins have been sold for fashion or the tourist trade.