Dryas monkey

The Dryas monkey, Chlorocebus dryas, also known as the Salonga monkey, ekele or inoko, is a little known Old World monkey found only in the Congo Basin on the left bank of the Congo River. Animals once described as the Zaire Diana monkey, Cercopithecus salongo, are now known to be Dryas monkeys. Adult males have a black muzzle, white whiskers and a short white beard, a grey-chestnut back and white underparts, and weigh 4 to 7 kilograms. It prefers secondary forest but may also use lowlands, rivers and swampy ground, eats mostly fruit, young leaves and flowers with some insects, and lives in troops of up to 30 with a single male. Its population may number fewer than 200 animals, and poaching for meat and logging threaten it. The IUCN listing was raised from critically endangered to endangered in 2019 after the species was found at eight sites in Lomami National Park, and it is on Appendix II of CITES.