Common Name: Lowe’s Guenon Scientific Name: Cercopithecus campbelli lowei
LEAST CONCERN Lowe’s Guenon Distribution: Ghana to Gambia Habitat: Forest Height: Approx. 45cm Weight: 2.5kg - 4kg Diet: Omnivorous Fruit, leaves, animals.
Lowe’s guenons are medium sized monkeys with speckled yellow to brown coats. They have very attractive coats that have a gold sheen and a golden crest on their foreheads. The monkey spend most of their day foraging for food. Over 70% of their diet is made up of fruit but they will supplement their diet with animal prey. If they can catch them they will eat animals such as insects, worms and small mammals. The monkeys are ‘old world’ monkeys, meaning they come from either Africa of Asia. Lowe’s Guenons come from central areas of Africa including the countries from Ghana round to the Gambia where they inhabit the forests and sometimes the many abandoned farms in this area. These monkeys are the most terrestrial of the guenons spending a lot of their time on the ground. Generally these monkeys form groups that consist of a single male and many females. The ‘dominant’ male will guard the females and protect the territory from predators and rival groups. They have been seen in medium groups in the wild of up to 15 individuals. Groups this size would only form when food was plentiful and there was little competition between the monkeys. These monkeys have distinctive calls as their warning calls sound like noisy sneezes!