Dryas monkey
The Dryas monkey (Chlorocebus dryas), also known as Salonga monkey, ekele, or inoko, is a little-known species of Old World monkey found only in the Congo Basin, restricted to the left bank of the Congo River. It is now established that the animals that had been classified as Cercopithecus salongo (the common name being Zaire Diana monkey) were in fact Dryas monkeys. Some older sources treat the Dryas monkey as a subspecies of the Diana monkey and classify it as C. diana dryas, but it is geographically isolated from any known Diana monkey population.
| Dryas monkey | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Primates |
| Suborder: | Haplorhini |
| Infraorder: | Simiiformes |
| Family: | Cercopithecidae |
| Genus: | Chlorocebus |
| Species: | C. dryas |
| Binomial name | |
| Chlorocebus dryas (Schwarz, 1932) | |
| Geographic range of first-known population (a second population is to the southeast, near the edge of the square) | |
| Synonyms | |
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While the Dryas monkey had been considered data deficient, evidence suggests it is very rare and its total population possibly numbers fewer than 200 individuals. Consequently, its status was changed to critically endangered in the 2008 IUCN Red List. Along with being listed by the IUCN, this species is also listed on Appendix II of CITES. However, in January 2019 the IUCN status was changed to endangered following the discovery of this species at eight locations in Lomami National Park.