Sooty Mangabey

Taxobox
name = Sooty MangabeyMSW3 Groves|pages=153]

---

image_caption = White-collared Mangabey ("C. atys lunulatus")
status = VU
status_system = iucn3.1
status_ref = IUCN2006|assessors=Primate Specialist Group|year=1996|id=4205|title=Cercocebus atys|downloaded=10 May 2006]
trend = unknown
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Primates
familia = Cercopithecidae
genus = "Cercocebus"
species = "C. atys"
binomial = "Cercocebus atys"
binomial_authority = (Audebert, 1797)

The Sooty Mangabey ("Cercocebus atys") is an Old World monkey found in forests from Senegal east to Ghana. While overall rated as Near Threatened, the eastern race "lunulatus", also known as the White-crowned [ [http://www.mangabeyssp.org/White-Crowned%20Mangabey.htm White-crowned Mangabey.] Mangabey Species Survival Plan. Accessed 2008-07-18] or White-collared Mangabey (leading to easy confusion with the Collared Mangabey), is considered Critically Endangered by the IUCN. [IUCN2007|assessors=Primate Specialist Group|year=1996|id=4206|title=Cercocebus atys ssp. lunulatus|downloaded=18 July 2008]

Disease

It is believed that a strain of the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) jumped from this species to humans to become the HIV-2 virus. The HIV-1 strain came from the Common Chimpanzee strain of SIV. [cite journal | author = Binhua Ling, Cristian Apetrei, Ivona Pandrea, Ronald S. Veazey, Andrew A. Lackner, Bobby Gormus, and Preston A. Marx | doi = 10.1128/JVI.78.16.8902-8908.2004 | title = Classic AIDS in a Sooty Mangabey after an 18-Year Natural Infection | journal = J. Virol. | month = August | year = 2004 | volume = 78 | issue = 16 | pages = 8902–8908 | pmid = 15280498]

The Sooty Mangabey can also contract leprosy, as can humans, the Nine-banded Armadillo, the Common Chimpanzee, and the Crab-eating Macaque. [cite journal | author = Rojas-Espinosa O, Løvik M | title = Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepraemurium infections in domestic and wild animals | journal = Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz. | volume = 20 | issue = 1 | pages = 219–51 | year = 2001 | pmid = 11288514]

Habitat and ecology

The Sooty Mangabey lives in both old growth and secondary forests as well as in flooded, dry, swamp, mangrove, and gallery forests. The primate is arboreal and diurnal. They are omnivores whose diet includes primarily fruits and seeds, sometimes feeding on small animals. They live in social groups of four to twelve individuals, but occasionally groups as large as 95 individuals have been recorded. [cite book | author = Rowe, N. | year = 1996 | title = The Pictorial Guide to the Living Primates | publisher = Pogonias Press | location = East Hampton, New York]

Taxonomy

There are two distinctive subspecies of this mangabey, and it is possible they should be considered separate species. Both were formerly considered subspecies of a widespread "Cercocebus torquatus".

* "Cercocebus atys atys" (west of the Sassandra River)
* White-collared (or White-crowned) Mangabey, "Cercocebus atys lunulatus" (east of the Sassandra River)

References

External links

* [http://members.tripod.com/uakari/cercocebus_atys.html Sooty Mangabey]
* [http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/mammals/Cercocebus_atys/ Photos and information about the Sooty Mangabey (Cercocebus atys).] ARKive.
* [http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/sooty_mangabey Primate Info Net "Cercocebus atys" Factsheet]