Bouvier's Red Colobus
A large, vividly coloured monkey that no scientist has ever studied alive
No confirmed photograph exists
Location
Likouala region, Republic of Congo
Overview
Bouvier's red colobus is a striking large monkey with bold red and black colouring, known from the remote swamp forests of the Republic of Congo. No scientist has ever observed it alive. All scientific records consist of a small number of museum skins and bones collected before 1978. Since then — nothing. No camera trap image, no field observation, no verified sighting in nearly 50 years. It is listed as Critically Endangered with a question mark: feared extinct, but the habitat it lived in is among the most inaccessible places on Earth.
Why haven't we found it?
The Likouala swamp forests cover an area the size of England and are flooded for much of the year — accessible only by dugout canoe along channels that aren't on maps. Scientific surveys have almost never penetrated the interior. The region also has a complex political history that has prevented systematic wildlife research. The monkey may be gone, or it may be living in a patch of flooded forest no researcher has reached.
Reasons to keep looking
- 1
A 2015 Wildlife Conservation Society survey of Ntokou-Pikounda National Park received local reports of a large red monkey matching the species' description from communities deep in the swamps.
- 2
Camera trap images from the same 2015 survey showed what may be the species — identification was not certain enough for a formal confirmation, but researchers noted the coloring and size were consistent.
- 3
The habitat, while threatened by logging concessions encroaching from the south, remains largely intact in the core of the Likouala region.
Things worth knowing
- 1
The species was collected by French naturalists in the 19th century and formally described in 1887. No living individual was ever studied by a biologist.
- 2
Red colobuses are leaf-eaters with specialized multi-chambered stomachs for digesting foliage — a feeding strategy that ties them closely to intact forest.
- 3
The Likouala swamp forests contain one of the largest unfragmented tropical forest blocks in Africa, which is why something this large could still be hiding there.
- 4
In 2019, IUCN uplisted several African primates based on new survey data; Bouvier's red colobus remained on the list of potentially extinct species with insufficient data to confirm either way.
- 5
Its closest relative, the Preuss's red colobus, was recently confirmed as a distinct species from Cameroon and is itself Critically Endangered with under 2,000 individuals.