Mona Monkey, scientific name, Cercopithecus mona, is an arboreal, diurnal, omnivorous, frugivorous, social African monkey (called Guenon) with a body length of 32 to 53 cm and a long tail of 67 to 90 cm. The dorsal fur is red-brown to brown-agouti. The ventral surface and buttocks are white. The upper half of the face is bluish-gray with a white band on the forehead. Eyebrows are dark, and the snout is pinkish. Around the face, the hair is yellow with a dark stripe running from between the eyes to the ears. The cheeks are greyish-yellow and the lips are white. Males typically weigh 5kg and females around 4kg. Gestation period is between 5 and 6 months and monkeys are known to live to around 30 years.
Yoruba and Igbo slaves in the late 17th Century were major transporters of the Mona Monkeys to Grenada, the only place where they are found beyond their southwest African habitats (which includes the African mangrove swamps, gallery forests and woodlands of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal, Congo, Angola, Kasai, Gambia, Kwango and West Uganda). The monkey is called Ijimere in Yoruba language.
