A MONKEY with a mohican hairstyle discovered in Tanzania last year is not only a new species but also in an evolutionary league of its own.

When two research teams announced the discovery of the kipunji, a crested monkey living on the slopes of a volcano, it was hailed as the first new primate species discovered for two decades. A genetic analysis of a monkey caught in a trap, however, has shown that it belongs to a new genus and is the first of these to be identified among primates for 83 years.

The kipunji was first described last year on the basis of observations and photographs and scientists had initially assumed that it was a new species of the genus Lophocebus, commonly known as the mangabey. Accordingly it was named the highland mangabey.

Examination of the animal’s DNA and skeleton has proved that it is not a mangabey, it is more closely related to baboons of the genus Papio and has been assigned to a new genus — Rungwecebus, named after Mount Rungwe, where the first colonies were found. Details of the research are published in the journal Science.

William Stanley, of the Field Museum in Chicago, where the monkey’s skeleton is kept, said: “This is exciting news because it shows that the age of discovery is by no means over.”

Link Olson, of the University of Alaska, who performed the DNA analysis, said: “Finding a new genus of the best-studied group of living mammals is a sobering reminder of how much we have to learn about our planet’s biodiversity.”

Genus is the level of classification above species. Human beings, for example, belong to the species Homo sapiens, and to the genus Homo.

The kipunji has pale grey-brown fur, with off-white fur on its belly and on the end of its long tail, which is usually curled up. The monkey also has a crown of long, erect hair. It eats leaves, shoots, flowers, bark, fruit and insects and lives in social groups of 30-36 adults. Sixteen colonies are known in the Rungwe-Livingstone forest and Ndundulu Forest Reserve. The specimen studied was 37cm (14½in) long.

The kipunji, which has been given the name Rungwecebus kipunji, was identified after the dead trapped animal was removed by Sophy Machaga, a researcher. An international group collaborated to examine the skeleton and take tissue samples for DNA analysis.

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