Colobus satanas: Black Colobus

Black Colobus - Colobus satanas
( Waterhouse, 1838 )

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Subspecies:	Unknown
Est. World Population:

CITES Status:	NOT LISTED
IUCN Status:	Vulnerable
U.S. ESA Status:	NOT LISTED

Body Length:
Tail Length:
Shoulder Height:
Weight:

Top Speed:
Jumping Ability:	(Horizontal)

Life Span:	in the Wild
Life Span:	in Captivity

Sexual Maturity:	(Females)
Sexual Maturity:	(Males)
Litter Size:
Gestation Period:

Habitat:

This species inhabits coastal evergreen, lowland moist, montane and swamp forests. It is typically found high in the canopy of dense, primary rainforest, and is now only present in protected or undisturbed inaccessible areas. It appears unable to survive in secondary forest, and is rare or absent in forests where logging has reduced canopy height.

Colobus satanas is a highly arboreal, diurnal species. Like other colobines, they eat seeds and leaves (seeds being around 50-60% of the diet: Fleury and Brugière 2013). This species lives in groups averaging 13 individuals (range 5–30) and has an annual home range of between 70–570 ha (Fleury and Brugière 2013). They are often found in polyspecific troops with guenons and mangabeys.

Range:

This species occurs in Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon in tropical moist forest. There are two subspecies: Colobus satanas satanas on the island of Bioko (part of Equatorial Guinea) and C. s. anthracinus on the mainland. The northern limit of its distribution is the left bank of the Sanaga River in Cameroon, and the southern limit is unknown, but likely somewhere around 2° S. The eastern limit is likewise ill-defined, and could be the upper Ogooué and lower Ivindo rivers (both in Gabon) at roughly 12° E, but there are records from up to about 14° E in both the Mwagna National Park in Gabon (Moussavou Makanga 2009) and Garabinzam area in northwestern Congo (Ella Akou and Moussavou Makanga 2010, Mbolo 2010). This species is now rare or absent in those parts of its range where there has been extensive logging. On mainland Equatorial Guinea, its range had been reduced to one-third of its former size by 1967 and these monkeys are now exceedingly rare (Ruffler et al. 2012). On Bioko, approximately 95% of the population lives in two of the island’s protected areas (Gran Caldera Scientific Reserve and Pico Basilé National Park). In the Dja Biosphere Reserve in Cameroon, despite an intensive survey in 2015 (over 500 km of effort), no black colobus were seen at all (whilst C. guereza were reasonably common) (MINFOF/UICN, 2015).

Conservation:

This species is listed on Appendix II of CITES.

Colobus satanas occurs in many of the protected areas in its range, including one World Heritage Site: Lopé (Gabon). The stronghold of this species is now the protected areas of Gabon where it is still found in reasonably good shape, but it is becoming less and less abundant in the unprotected forests outside these protected areas. It is probably almost entirely absent across much of its former range south of the Sanaga in Cameroon apart from in some protected areas.

On Bioko, almost all remaining individuals of the subspecies C. s. satanas are in protected areas and have been hunted out elsewhere. Equatorial Guinea banned the hunting, sale and consumption of primates in 2007, but application of and compliance with this law is very weak (Cronin et al. 2016, Ruffler et al. 2012). The species is named on the completely protected list in Congo, but is not mentioned in the laws of the other three range states, which needs to be rectified.