New Monkey Goes up a Branch on Family Tree

A new monkey discovered last year in Tanzania is not just a new species, but a new genus. Rungwecebus kipunji is a large, light-colored monkey, up to 90 cm tall, and sports what one writer called a " distinctive Mohawk stripe of hair."
The animal was originally classified in an existing genus when photographs taken in the wild showed it clearly could not be referred to any known species. This was, incidentally, a very interesting affair, as cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has pointed out, because the scientific world very rarely accepts a photograph as a holotype for naming a new species. The usual rule is that you have to have a specimen. The rule was apparently bent in this case because qualified scientists observed and photographed it. (There's no one arbiter of what is accepted as a species - acceptance is more a case of "most scientists go along with it.") The DNA analysis that resulted in the new-genus claim was based on a specimen killed by a farmer well after the species' description had been published.
To illustrate this (ahem) fuzzy state of affairs, the news releases on this species have called it the first new genus of monkey in 83 years. That distinction requires discounting the new genera of monkeys Dr. Marc van Roosmalen has named in the Amazon. Van Roosmalen's work has not been universally accepted, as some zoologists think he's too quick to create new species based on surface differences.
In the case of the Tanzanian monkey (locally called the kipunji), one prominent taxonomist, Dr. Colin Groves, has urged caution, questioning whether enough DNA analysis has been done to prove the animal's distinctive status as a new genus. Even that pronouncement can be questioned, though, because there's no agreement on what degree of difference in DNA establishes a separate species, let alone a genus.
We will settle for this: a large, distinctive new primate has been discovered. It's one more reminder that we are a long way from knowing all the creatures of the Earth.

Thanks to Kris Winkler for the pointer to the article referenced above and to Loren Coleman for his analysis on www.cryptomundo.com.