Discovery of New Species Bucks Extinction Trend

Just as 1,300 scientists from 90 nations warn of looming extinction in the animal world, a small team of biologists has discovered a species of African monkey.

The highland mangabey - Lophocebus kipunji - was spotted by Wildlife Conservation Society biologists on the flanks of Mount Rungwe, a 10,000ft (3,500 metre) volcano in Tanzania. It is brown, about 3ft long, with an erect crest of hair on its head. It has elongated cheek whiskers and an unusual call. It is also rare: the total population could be less than 1,000.

"This demonstrates again how little we know about our closest living relatives," said Russell Mittermeier of the IUCN-World Conservation Union's species survival commission. "A large, striking monkey in a country of considerable wildlife research over the last century has hidden under our noses."

There are about 4,000 mammals on the planet. Scientists in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment warned yesterday that more than a fifth of all mammals, a third of all amphibians and a quarter of the world's coniferous trees are threatened.

But paradoxically, zoologists and ornithologists keep discovering species or rediscovering others thought to have gone into oblivion. In the last few weeks a hitherto unsuspected rodent appeared in Laos and US ornithologists announced the rediscovery of a giant woodpecker, thought to have vanished decades ago, in Arkansas.

A patch of forest in Vietnam has in the last 20 years or so produced a new species of ox, a new kind of deer, and a pheasant thought extinct since 1928.

The Laotian woods revealed a strange new species of striped rabbit. Between 1937 and 1994, 16 species of large mammal were discovered, including six varieties of whale.

The new mangabey - reported in Science today - was first spotted by research biologists keen to conserve another species of mangabey, and seen again by second team of conservationists. The little primate's hold on survival might be precarious. One part of its range is severely degraded by illegal logging. "Clearly this remarkable discovery shows that there are still wild places where humans are not yet the dominant species," said John Robinson of the Wildlife Conservation Society.