Mantled guerezas

Thanks to the ample space and the temperament of both species, the gorillas and guerezas coexist in perfect harmony. What’s more, the playful interactions between the guerezas and the younger gorillas provide excellent mutual enrichment. Photo: Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

The gorilla family’s exhibit is also home to mantled guerezas—sociable and fairly peaceful arboreal monkeys from central and eastern Africa.

In the wild, guerezas live in loosely organised troops, with a core of related females. They spend most of their time perched on branches with their tails hanging down, carefully plucking young leaves and shoots.

Our guerezas belong to the Mt. Kenya guereza subspecies (Colobus guereza kikuyuensis), which lives in central Kenya. The breeding group consists of two females from the French zoo La Vallée des Singes and a male from Gdańsk Zoo in Poland. Both females had already lived in a mixed exhibit with gorillas before they arrived in Prague, which proved extremely beneficial—they quickly settled in with our gorilla family, as if they had been here from birth. The male had never seen gorillas before, but seeing how completely at ease his two companions were, he too adapted quickly to his new surroundings and their inhabitants.