A monkey of a species scientists hadn't seen since the 1970s, and which was assumed extinct by many experts, has been photographed in the Republic of Congo, researchers say.
The rare primate, known as Bouvier's red colobus monkey, was photographed in the country's newest wildlife preserve, the Ntokou-Pikounda National Park.
Primatologists Lieven Devreese and Gaël Elie Gnondo Gobolo managed to snap a photo of an adult female and an infant, most likely hers, in the 1,765-square mile preserve created in 2013 to protect gorillas, elephants, chimpanzees and numerous other species.
Earlier this year, the researchers set off hoping to photograph red colobus monkeys and document their present distribution, in an expedition financed by donations collected on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo and with funding from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Using local people who were familiar with the monkey's calls and behaviors, they found a troop of the monkeys living in swampy forests along the Bokiba River inside the park.
Many scientists had feared that hunting and logging in the area, which decimated the species' population, may have caused it to go extinct.
"Our photos are the world's first and confirm that the species is not extinct," Devreese said.
Since the 1970s, Bouvier's red colobus monkeys have only been known from a few museum specimens collected more than a century ago, following the discovery and description of the species in 1887.
The species is particularly vulnerable to bushmeat hunters because it displays little fear of humans, preferring to watch hunters — or inquisitive scientists like Devreese and Gobolo — quietly from their treetop perches rather than fleeing.
That makes the recent establishment of the national park important for their survival, says Fiona Maisels, a biologist who serves as an expert on Central Africa for the Wildlife Conservations Society.
"Thankfully, many of these colobus monkeys live in the recently gazetted national park and are protected from threats such as logging, agriculture, and roads, all of which can lead to increased hunting," she says.
It took a certain amount of perseverance and luck to find and photograph the monkeys, the researchers said, noting they had explored the banks of the Bokiba River for four days, changed camps twice and were just about "running out of food, battery and courage" when they found a group of the monkeys and captured their photograph.
"What a beautiful monkey!" they said in a posting on their Indiegogo website.
