The agile mangabey (''Cercocebus agilis'') is an

Old World monkey Old World monkey is the common English name for a family of primates known taxonomically as the Cercopithecidae (). Twenty-four genera and 138 species are recognized, making it the largest primate family. Old World monkey genera include baboons ...

of the

white-eyelid mangabey The white-eyelid mangabeys are African Old World monkeys belonging to the genus ''Cercocebus''. They are characterized by their bare upper eyelids, which are lighter than their facial skin colouring, and the uniformly coloured hairs of the fur. ...

group found in swampy forests of

Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, ...

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...

Republic of Congo The Republic of the Congo (french: République du Congo, ln, Republíki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa to the w ...

, and

DR Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. Until 1978, it was considered a

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

of the

Tana River mangabey The Tana River mangabey (''Cercocebus galeritus'') is a highly endangered species of primate in the family Cercopithecidae. Some authorities have included the taxa ''agilis'' and '' sanjei'' as subspecies of this species, while others award the ...

(''C. galeritus''). More recently, the

golden-bellied mangabey The golden-bellied mangabey (''Cercocebus chrysogaster'') is a social Old World monkey found in swampy, humid forests south of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was previously considered a subspecies of the agile manga ...

(''C. chrysogaster'') has been considered a separate species instead of a subspecies of the agile mangabey.

Physical characteristics

The agile mangabey has a short, overall dull

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...

-grey pelage. The bare skin of the face and feet is blackish. Males are in length and weigh about , while the smaller females are and weigh .

Behavior

Similar to other

mangabey Mangabeys are West-African Old World monkeys, with species in three of the six genera of tribe Papionini. The more typical representatives of ''Cercocebus'', also known as the white-eyelid mangabeys, are characterized by their bare, upper eye-l ...

s, they are diurnal. Although generally

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the Animal locomotion, locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally, but others are exclusively arboreal. Th ...

, they do spend a significant portion of their time (12–22%) on the ground, especially during the dry season. It is typically more commonly heard than seen, and males have a loud, species-specific call that is believed to be used to space themselves out. Other calls are also used to maintain group cohesion and warn of predators. Group size can be as high as 18 members, led by a single adult male. Group meetings can be friendly and may involve exchange of members. Adult males not in groups often travel singly.

Diet

Fruit makes up a major portion of the agile mangabey diet. They are known to eat at least 42 different species of fruit. Their tooth structure and powerful jaws allows them to open tough pods and fruits that many other monkeys can not access. Agile mangabeys eat from a number of dominant swamp-forest trees, including dika nuts and

sugar plums A sugar plum originated as a piece of dragée or hard candy made of hardened sugar in a small round or oval shape. "Plum" in the name of this confection does not always mean plum in the sense of the fruit of the same name, but commonly refers ...

, when they are fruiting. They also eat fresh leaf shoots from

raffia palm Raffia palms (''Raphia'') are a genus of about twenty species of palms native to tropical regions of Africa, and especially Madagascar, with one species (''R. taedigera'') also occurring in Central and South America. ''R. taedigera'' is the sour ...

s when fruits are scarce.

Grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

es and

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is t ...

s, as well as

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s, other

invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

, bird's eggs and some vertebrate prey, such as

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...

s, are also eaten.

Other

Agile mangabeys are known to contract T-cell

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

, similar to the leukemia virus that infects humans. There is also evidence that they contract

Simian immunodeficiency virus ''Simian immunodeficiency virus'' (''SIV'') is a species of retrovirus that cause persistent infections in at least 45 species of non-human primates. Based on analysis of strains found in four species of monkeys from Bioko Island, which was isola ...

(SIV), a virus related to human

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

that infects certain

ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...

s and

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...

s. They have rarely been kept in captivity, with only three individuals held in

Species360 Species360 (formerly International Species Information System or ISIS) founded in 1974, is an international non-profit organization that maintains an online database of wild animals under human care. , the organization serves more than 1,000 zoo ...

registered institutions in July 2008.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1344965

agile mangabey The agile mangabey (''Cercocebus agilis'') is an Old World monkey of the white-eyelid mangabey group found in swampy forests of Central Africa in Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, and DR Congo. Unti ...

Mammals of Cameroon Mammals of Equatorial Guinea Mammals of Gabon Mammals of the Republic of the Congo Mammals of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Fauna of Central Africa