A monkey with bright pinkish-orange lips and a black face living in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been confirmed by science as a new species.
The black-furred primate was spotted and photographed hidden in the canopy of tall trees in the dense rainforest of Lomami National Park, in the central east of the country.
Conservationists working there first reported seeing this unusual animal back in 2008. But they only took one blurry photo.
Following another sighting 10 years later, an international team set out to find and study the monkey and discovered that it was a previously unknown species.
This is only the fifth species of African monkey to be discovered in the last 75 years.
Junior Amboko, a graduate student at Florida Atlantic University, played a leading role in the search, which included audio recordings, photographs and detailed genetic studies.
The results were published in the journal PLoS One.external.
Amboko told BBC News it was an “amazing feeling” to look into the face of an animal that few people knew existed.