Highland Mangabey

Three years ago scientists discovered a new monkey species known as the highland mangabey (Lophocebus kipunji), or kipunji, seen above, in a mountainous region of Tanzania in East Africa.

Experts estimate that fewer than a thousand of the medium-size, long-tailed tree-dwellers live in the wild, a figure that led the IUCN to list the primate as "critically endangered" in 2008. (See "Newfound Monkey Species 'Rarest in Africa,' Expert Says" [August 4, 2008].)

Among the hundreds of primate species and subspecies known to science, 53 have been discovered since 2000.

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