Sykes' Monkey
Cercopithecus mitis albogularis · Mammals
Sykes' Monkey
Kenya, 30 September 2023
A Sykes' Monkey in the forest of the Kenyan highlands, and rarely far from cover. They live in the middle of the canopy rather than the ground or the very top, in troops of a few dozen, on fruit mostly, with leaves, insects and the occasional egg.
The name is Colonel William Sykes, a Victorian soldier and naturalist of the East India Company; the monkey has its own names in every language around it. Where forest meets farmland it gets treated as vermin, which is the usual story.
Sykes' Monkey
Kenya, 30 September 2023
A Sykes' Monkey grooming in the forest of the Kenyan highlands, which is where the East African form of this widespread species lives: in the canopy of the montane and coastal forests from Kenya to Mozambique. Grooming takes up a good part of the day.
The white throat and chest give the local name, white-throated monkey, and separate this form from the blue monkeys further south and west - all of which are one very variable species. The grooming is hygiene, but it is mostly politics: who grooms whom, and for how long, maps closely onto rank.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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