Westerly Extent of the Range of Three African Lorisoid Primates

Abstract

IN 1958 Booth¹ reviewed the zoogeography of West African primates and followed Rosevear² in placing the Cross River as the western boundary to the range of three Central African lorisoids. These were the angwantibo, Arctocebus calabarensis (Smith), Allen's bushbaby, Galago alleni Waterhouse, and the needle-clawed bushbaby, Euoticus elegantulus (Le Conte). Schwarz^3,4 and Hill⁵ had previously speculated on the Niger as the western boundary, but Rosevear's knowledge of this particular area has given much weight to the theory of the Cross River as a faunal barrier. Apparently unknown to Booth, however, angwantibos had been recorded before 1958 (refs. 6 and 7) from Owerri, Umuahia and Aba, which lie far to the west of the Cross River, and Rosevear himself⁸ had recorded the animal in a collection brought to him from the Mamu Forest Reserve (see Fig. 1). Through field work in Elastern Nigeria^* we have been able to produce new and positive evidence on the distribution of the angwantibo and the bushbabies.