That all sounds familiar like, but then with great apes - gorillas. Could there possibly not be a hormonal cum nutritional connection relating to infertility?
The Hamlyn's I've observed( five Zoos) are fairly quiet and seem rather nervous, compared to some of the bolder Guenons such as Diana, De Brazza and L'Hoests. At Twycross they were usually kept in close proximity with other species. Was this more the reason for failure to breed, than supposed' low sperm' count?
@Pertinax In Leipzig the Hamlyn monkeys were kept in the 100 years old monkey house for 40 years in small cages in close proximity to several other species of guenon, colobus, macaque and bred every year - the proximity can't be the reason.
Well its been just over 2 years since the last update to this topic. What is the status of Owl Faced Monkeys in Europe now? I know there have been at least 2-3 births. Any deaths? Transfers?
I think this species has a bleak future. The zoos who have invest in new enclosures (Doué, Bojnice) lack of births so far. And the main breeder (Antwerp) got very low interest to invest.
Antwerp is fortunately not the main breeder, looking at the past 10 years Leipzig, La Palmyre and Mulhouse have all had more breeding success. Both Doue and Bojnice have recently received new animals. More holders are certainly needed though.
Berlin received a young couple from La Palmyre (1,0) and Antwerp (0,1) in 2018. The last offspring in Leipzig, born 2016 is a male. I hope for further offspring next year.
True. But for the last four years, Antwerp was the main breeder with 3 young of a fairly recent couple. I do not know how long these animals live (up to 20 yrs?) and how many years they are fertile but I looks like most 2010-2015 breeding couples are now less succesfull. Leipzig only got 2 young last 10 years
Didn't Bristol zoo once keep this species in their monkey house ? I seem to remember seeing a pair of these years ago there (around the turn of millenium) but it was a long time ago and I could be mistaken about that (Visited Edinburgh zoo around the same time where I might have seen them ) and these might have been another kind of guenon species.
Bristol have never kept Hamlyn's Owl-faced Monkey. They did keep De Brazza's guenon around the time you suggest. Five UK zoos have kept them previously- Edinburgh, London, Marwell, Twycross & Banham, but none do so now.
Come to think of it I may be confusing a faint memory of seeing Owl faced monkeys at Edinburgh around the same time and swamp monkeys at Bristol.
On the website of La Palmyre I found some interesting information about the evolution of numbers. Naissance d'un cercopithèque de Hamlyn | Zoo de la Palmyre It's written in french but if someone is interested I can translate it in English.
This has historically been an issue for other nervous and highly strung primate species like the pied tamarin when kept in close proximity to other Callitrichids. There could be a possibility that the same might be happening with Hamlyn's owl monkey kept in proximity with other guenon species. That said @BjoernN does make a good point about specific cases where this hasn't seemed to negatively impact the success of captive breeding.
A owl-faced monkey (Cercopithecus hamlyni) was born on 2 february to Jimmel en Kibo. There previous youngster Vince and an elderly brother of him live in the samen enclosure.
The boy born in 2022 in Antwerp has died due to a bone disease. In 2022 an owl faced monkey was born in Berlin to the paier Pia (Antwerp) and Pierre (La Palmyre). Zweiter Nachwuchs bei den Eulenkopfmeerkatzen im Zoo Berlin
