De Brazza’s Monkey: an encounter in the Republic of Congo

The cover of the latest edition of the Bartlett Society’s Newsletter shows a De Brazza’s Monkey, Cercopithecus neglectus, now common in zoos but in the past considered one of the more unusual monkeys to be seen in captivity; according to the Society’s checklist the first breeding in Britain was at Paignton Zoo in 1957. A question the leapt into my head: who was it that said a better name for the animal would be the Sir Thomas Beecham Monkey given the remarkable facial resemblance—complete with goatee beard—to the famous conductor? I then remembered. It was the late Clin Keeling, founder of the Bartlett Society, at one of my first visits to Pan’s Garden, the Keelings’ ill-fated collection at Ashover in Derbyshire in 1960. How the esoteric topic of De Brazzas’s Monkey came up I cannot remember but since the name Molly Badham came up whenever monkeys were being discussed I wonder if she, in the days before Twycross Zoo, had acquired some.

I was delighted to see De Brazza’s Monkey in the wild in 2014 in the Republic of Congo. Indeed there is no more appropriate place in which to do so since the capital to which we had flown from Paris is Brazzaville. The monkey is named after one Italian-born Frenchman, Jacques Camille Savorgnan de Brazza (1859–1888); the capital after his elder brother, Pierre Paul François Camille Savorgnan de Brazza (1852-1905). Jacques was responsible for the collection of natural history specimens in West Africa which were sent to France. As a result, in 1886 Henri Milne-Edwards, the half-English French zoologist, named the species Cercopithecus brazzae. Later it was realised that the species had been described ten years earlier by Hermann Schlegel and it is his name, C. neglectus, that was adopted because it had priority. Some then some began using the common name Schlegel’s Guenon or Monkey as the common name but it is as De Brazza’s that the monkey is now known. It is then a case of mismatch between the origins of the scientific name and the common name. It is a pity that the word guenon has fallen out of use for cercopithecine monkeys. Guenon, as in De Brazza’s Guenon gives an indication of geographical origin in the common name; monkey does not.

Distribution Map from the IUCN website

 

In the Congo

We were drifting with the current down the Lekoli River when we saw the De Brazza’s Monkeys high in the trees. We were staying at the nearby Lango Camp in the Odzala-Kokoua National Park. The monkeys were behaving as described in the book: a small group in dense vegetation; close to a river; not associating with other monkeys. While I had a good view through the binoculars of 2-3 individuals, I had insufficient time to take any video. They soon scampered behind the vegetation at the end of a thick branch.

De Brazza’s were not the only primates we saw in the Republic of Congo. As well as the the Western Lowland Gorillas I have described in earlier posts, there were: Grey-cheeked Mangabey (Lophocebus albigena); Moustached Monkey (Cercopithecus cebus); Putty-nosed Monkey (Cercopithecus nictitans); Guereza (Colobus guereza); Southern Needle-clawed Galago (Euoticus elegantulus).

None of the monkeys we saw, except the Guereza Colobus around the camp, hung around to be admired or came close to us, although I did get good footage of the Putty-nosed. Whether their apparent timidity was related to the fact that they are on the local menu as bushmeat I do not know.

Here are a couple of photographs of the Lekoli River. They are stills taken from video footage, hence the poor quality.