Mount Kilimanjaro Guereza

• Common Name: Mount Kilimanjaro Guereza
• Taxonomy Classification Year: 1885
• Monkey Size: 45 to 72 cm (17.72 to 28.35 in)
• Skin Color(s): Black and white
• Habitat: Forest, rainforest, scrub forest
• Diet: Herbivorous
• Native Countries: Tanzania, Kenya

The Kilimanjaro guereza^[1] (Colobus caudatus) is one of the 7 subspecies of the Mantled guereza.

• It is found in Kenya and Tanzania in the forests surrounding Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro.
• The Kilimanjaro guereza coat has a distinctive black coat with long white stripes of silky hair, known as a mantle, on the sides of the body and tail.
• The bands that make up the coat begin at the shoulders and extend down the back to meet at the lower torso.
• The tail is long and ends in a white tuft that covers up to 80 percent of the tail. The coat color varies from white to cream or yellow.
• The face is framed with white and bushy hair on the cheeks. The thigh has a white band.
• Like most colobi, the Kilimanjaro guereza coat has a small vestigial thumb.

• The Kilimanjaro guereza lives primarily in trees but sometimes descends to the ground to eat and travel, perhaps more so than most other colobines.
• Despite their reputation as exclusive leaf-eaters, these guereza monkeys are not obligate leaf-eaters. Although they eat mainly leaves and fruits, their diet is highly variable. They can eat flowers, bark, wood, seeds, petioles, vines, aquatic plants, arthropods, soil, and even building concrete.
• The Kilimanjaro guereza lives in stable social groups, usually from 3 to 15 members. Groups usually consist of 1 male, several females, and juveniles.
• The female species of the guereza group often have an egalitarian style of dominance without formalized rank relationships.
• Physical aggression within the group is generally harmless and hardly escalates into conflict.