THE FUSE

There are 536 species of monkeys in the world today and the Democratic Republic of Congo has a new one. Named Likweli, this rainforest primate is one of only five new African monkey species described in the past 75 years. Despite its distinctive orange lips, it has only been spotted by locals a few times since 2008. It took PhD student in biological sciences Junior Amboko (who named the new monkey) and an international team that included anthropologist Kate Detwiler years of searching by foot and canoe, and conducting field observations, photographs, audio recordings, genetic analysis and anatomical analysis to prove that Likweli was a species new to science. They explain their search.