Allen's Swamp Monkey

Open encyclopedia reference

Allen's swamp monkey (Allenopithecus nigroviridis) is a species of Old World monkey endemic to swamps and riparian forests in the central Congo Basin. As a medium-sized primate, adult individuals can have head-body lengths of up to 18 in (46 cm), with tails being slightly longer. It is identifiable by its coarse coat of green, brown, gray, and white fur. An arboreal omnivore, Allen's swamp monkey is typically found in trees adjacent to bodies of water, periodically descending to the ground to forage for a variety of invertebrates and plant matter in its riverine habitat. It is a diurnal, social animal that lives in groups of over 40 individuals. Although it was once considered to be a guenon, Allen's swamp monkey has been taxonomized as the only member of the genus Allenopithecus since the 1920s, which is now regarded as a sister clade of the guenons. Despite being a cercopithecin, Allen's swamp monkey exhibits a pastiche of traits typical of papionins, as it has many primitive features of the Cercopithecinae subfamily.

Wikipedia contributors, Allen's swamp monkey; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T08:32:48.358882+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Allenopithecus nigroviridis (Pocock, 1907)

Name authority

(Pocock, 1907)

Common name

Allen's Swamp Monkey

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Mammalia

Order

Primates

Family

Cercopithecidae

Genus

Allenopithecus

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classMammalia Linnaeus, 1758
9. subclassTheria Parker & Haswell, 1897
10. infraclassEutheria Gill, 1872
11. orderPrimates Linnaeus, 1758
12. suborderHaplorrhini Pocock, 1918
13. infraorderSimiiformes Haeckel, 1866
14. superfamilyCercopithecoidea Gray, 1821
15. familyCercopithecidae Gray, 1821
16. subfamilyCercopithecinae Gray, 1821
17. tribeCercopithecini
18. genusAllenopithecus Lang, 1923
19. speciesAllenopithecus nigroviridis (Pocock, 1907)

Close classified relatives

No other member of this genus is present in the selected snapshot.

Browse 136 records assigned to Cercopithecidae.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=572992 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:BTKJ. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.