New Monkey! New Monkey! There’s A New Monkey!

Many new species have been announced this week. There are new mites from Saudi Arabia and a new weevil from Japan. There are new midges from China and new spiders from Brazil and China. There is a new dragonfly from Vietnam, a new jewel beetle from Borneo, and a grasshopper from Ecuador. Each of these creatures is no doubt beautiful in their own right. And yet, none of them are monkeys. Seemingly every week science announces new midges, new spiders, new spineless hopping things that hadn’t been described because they are so small and elusive. It is not every week that science announces an animal so big and charismatic and closely related to us. It is not every week that science announces a new monkey.

New monkey! When you got under the covers last night, could you have imagined that just the next day that there would be a new monkey? When you placed your head upon your pillow and closed your eyes, did you have any inkling that, just around the corner, there would be a new monkey to know and love at a respectful distance? When you opened your bleary eyes this morning, could you have in your wildest dreams that you would, shortly after 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, gain a greater understanding of the biological resplendence that abounds on our lush and precious planet?

I have known about the monkey for around a week, which means I have had to actively restrain myself from telling everyone I know about the monkey, whose visage now graces the hallowed pages of this august website. I could not tell anyone about this monkey because of the rules of academic embargo, in which scientific papers are released to journalists a week or so before they actually publish so that we have the time to write up new stories that can be published as soon as the paper comes out. This means, by the time you are reading this, publications around the world will have published their own stories about the new monkey. Each will have its own merit, and many will be more serious than this one. But will they also have verve and gusto? Will they give the new monkey the flowers it deserves?