Bale Mountains vervet

The Bale Mountains vervet (Chlorocebus djamdjamensis), also called the Bale monkey, is a mostly ground living Old World monkey found only in Ethiopia, in the bamboo forests of the Bale Mountains. It is one of the least known primates in Africa, shy and quiet, and tends to flee from people. Unusually for its genus it is a dietary specialist: in continuous forest, African alpine bamboo can make up as much as 77 percent of what it eats, while animals in fragmented forest eat many more plant species and far less bamboo. A 2018 study found that fragmented populations are genetically distinct because of past hybridization with the grivet and the vervet monkey. The IUCN rates it Vulnerable and it appears on Appendix II of CITES. Habitat loss, crop raiding conflicts and hunting are its main threats.