Lesser spot-nosed monkey

The lesser spot-nosed monkey, Cercopithecus petaurista, is a small arboreal guenon of West Africa, found from Guinea-Bissau and Guinea through Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Ghana to Togo, with a record in southeastern Senegal. Its face is black with a white spot above the nose, and its olive-green or khaki upperparts are flecked with black and yellow while the underparts are white or cream. It is adaptable and uses primary and secondary forest, gallery forest, regenerating felled areas, coastal scrubland and farmland. Diurnal and cryptic, it moves cautiously through the understorey, lives in groups of about ten with one male, several females and their young, and feeds on leaves, fruit, flowers and insects, storing food in its cheek pouches. It is assessed as Near Threatened, though no major threats have been identified.