Know Your Primate: Presbytis melalophos

Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorrhini
Family: Cercopithecidae
Subfamily: Colobinae
Genus: Presbytis
Species: Presbytis melalophos
Common: Mitred Leaf Monkey
The mitred leaf monkey resides in the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and western Borneo. They are smallish colobines, weighing about 13 pounds, on average. They are diurnal and live in a wide variety of primary and secondary forests.

They have long arms, legs, and tails. They have short faces, weak postorbitals, prominent nasals and a tuft or crest on their head. Brachiation and leaping are their primary modes of locomotion. They eat leaves (preferring young leaves), seeds and some fruit. They live in small groups of about 10-12 animals (usually one male, five-seven females, and offspring). Unlike other colobines, the mitred leaf monkey isn’t known to engage in “allmothering” or letting other females take care of offspring. Males leave the group when half grown.