By Paul RinconScience editor, BBC
News website
17 January 2018
A monkey from Ethiopia and Sudan
with a "handlebar moustache" has been identified as a distinct
species.
Scientists took a fresh look at
the distribution and physical appearance of patas monkeys in Ethiopia,
confirming there were two species rather than one.
It was originally described as a
separate species in 1862, but was later folded in - incorrectly - with other
patas monkeys to form a single species.
Patas monkeys are found from west
to east across sub-Saharan Africa; they are among the fastest-moving of
ground-dwelling monkeys - able to reach speeds of about 55 km/h (34 mph).
Spartaco Gippoliti, from the IUCN
SSC Primate Specialist Group, reassessed the species status of patas monkeys in
the Blue Nile region of Ethiopia and Sudan.
His analysis led him to revive
the classification of the Blue Nile patas monkey (Erythrocebus poliophaeus) first proposed more than 150 years ago
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