Dry Lake Primate ID
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by
Quia
moderator
New area, new species! The baboons here are lovely, and I think pretty easy to ID, but who knows what other species will show up on the cameras. 😃
Very long tail, white ventral, buff/tan dorsal, with a black face and ears, and a white stripe under the ear. The young one looks very similar to the adult.
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ksigler
moderator
Oops, I just saw this post, after already asking about these in the old, long monkey ID thread. I guessed green monkeys, Chlorocebus sabaeus. What do you think?
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northernlimitptv
scientist, moderator
Hi @ksigler and @Quia, this is indeed a vervet! Chlorocebus aethiops is common here!
As for other common primates you might see in the area, be on the lookout for Patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas), baboons (Papio papio) and maybe even some bushbabies (Galago senegalensis)! There have also been sightings of lesser spot-nosed guenons Cercopithecus petaurista in the area... 😃
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Quia
moderator
in response to northernlimitptv's comment.
Thanks for all the information! Just to clarify, Chlorocebus aethiops is native to east Africa, but I think Dry Lake is in western Africa?
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northernlimitptv
scientist, moderator
Good point! Seems I've been using an old classification then 😃
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ksigler
moderator
Yes, the diagram (and respective distribution maps) here explain the differences well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorocebus
I really hope we get a Patas monkey!!
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AnLand
moderator
Another new one? I think, this is a Patas monkey ACP000708n (Erythrocebus pata). (If correct, it has a very cool German name!) Does anybody know more about the monkeys here?
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Quia
moderator
I think you are right about the Patas Monkey, AnLand!
It seems like the Chlorocebus genus is a bit of a mess of reclassification and common names that apply to more than one species... We could tag them as either green_monkey or vervet, any preferences?
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yshish
moderator
I'm strongly for the vervet, since this name is used elsewhere on Zooniverse
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AnLand
moderator
in response to Quia's comment.
Wonderful! How do we tag them #patas_monkey?
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northernlimitptv
scientist, moderator
To weigh in here... @Quia's post is a nice shot of a vervet and @AnLand you've found a great vid of a patas monkey!
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ksigler
moderator
Yay, @AnLand! You win my imaginary $5US prize for helping me check another species off my "want to see list." 😉 What a beautiful patas monkey, too.
RE: the green monkey/vervet... Sorry, @yshish... while I prefer the term vervet, I'm strongly for using green monkey. 😃 Vervet is used on the Gorongosa & Serengeti projects, but those are East African sites and in the distribution range of the vervet, exclusively. I think if we have the information to be accurate about the different species/sub-species, we should, for whatever research is done based on the data we provide. It wouldn't complicate tagging hierarchy, like when we try to sort out mona and red colobus monkeys.
For what it's worth (maybe a tie-breaker), we also had a mention a long time ago of callithrix, which is another less common name for the green monkey.
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MimiA
scientist, moderator
@ksigler, I agree with you green makes more sense, thanks for looking into this!
vervet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vervet_monkey
green https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_monkey
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yshish
moderator
in response to ksigler's comment.
Oh, sorry. OK, then green monkey would definitely be a better choice. I didn't know there is a difference between those two names in the taxonomy. I supposed they're synonyms for the same species and didn't check it 😃
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