Two separate teams of researchers working hundreds of miles apart have discovered a new species of monkey in Tanzania.  The highland mangabey is the first new species of monkey identified in 20 years and conservationists immediately said the find showed how important it was to preserve African forests.

The highland mangabey is a medium-sized monkey, about 3 feet tall with a long tail, long brown fur, a black face, hands and feet.  Adults make a distinctive, loud, low-pitched "honk-bark" call. They live in mountainside trees at elevations of up to 8,000 feet.  It is believed that fewer than 1,000 of the animals live in the highland forest. Hunters had often described the animals but no scientist had identified them.

"This exciting discovery demonstrates once again how little we know about our closest living relatives, the nonhuman primates," said Russell Mittermeier, chairman of the Primate Specialist Group of IUCN-The World Conservation Union's Species Survival Commission.  "A large, striking monkey in a country of considerable wildlife research over the last century has been hidden right under our noses."