This wildlife news is bananas.

Researchers were taken aback when they discovered a new species of black-furred monkey in Congo that sports distinctive orange lips and utters unique vocalizations. The findings were detailed in a study in the journal PLOS ONE.

“It’s not very common these days to find a new, never-before-documented primate species, let alone a relatively large species of monkey,” Joshua Linder, an anthropologist and president of The Forest Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to rainforest conservation, Livescience reported.

Named “Likweli” by the local Balanga people, the tangerine-lipped simian was first spotted in 2008 by conservationists exploring the deep jungles of Lomami National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Unfortunately, the photo was partially obscured, preventing them from identifying it.

It was not until 10 years later that the mysterious monkey was caught on camera again, whereupon researchers realized they were potentially dealing with an entirely new species, Science reported.

While the primate belongs to the genus Colobus, “the orange mask around the lips … and the way [the monkey’s] hair is spiky” are different from those of its brethren, according to Amboko, a Ph.D. student at Florida Atlantic University (FAU).

To determine whether Likweli was a new species, he and his team embarked on a pilgrimage to find the elusive primate. From 2018 to 2022, the scientists observed the monkeys in their natural habitat, recording their behavior and calls and even showing pictures to members of 52 villages around the park.

Alas, only eight villages were familiar with the animal, namely because they hunted it for food.

Nonetheless, the researchers gleaned important insights into the rare critter, observing that it weighed about 15 pounds and roved the trees in groups of up to 20.

Most unique were their physical traits, including their glossy black fur, white patch around the rump, and the aforementioned striking orange patch encircling the mouth and nose as if they had dipped their face in a bowl of Cheetos.

Study co-author Kate Detwiler of Florida Atlantic University speculated that these unique facial markings were a form of identification or even used to attract a mate, the BBC reported.

Unlike other Colobus monkeys, their calls comprised deep, loud roars and snorts.

During the course of their excursion, the scientists acquired dead specimens that had been confiscated from hunters who were selling them to the illegal bushmeat industry.

By extracting samples and sequencing the carcass’s DNA and then cross-referencing them with samples from the museum collections, the team was able to confirm that the monkey was a distinct species.

The creature, which they named C. congoensis after the Congo Basin itself, marked just the fifth African monkey species to be discovered in the last 75 years.

Coincidentally, their closest relatives were the black colobus (C. satanas), from which the primate diverged some 5 million years ago — the longest known split between members of the genus.

“The discovery is reshaping our understanding of African monkey evolution,” said Detwiler.

The scientists recommend that C. congoensis be classified as endangered, because it’s rare and resides in a small geographical range of around 650 miles.

Ecologists fear the monkey is under threat from hunting and deforestation in the buffer zone around the national park.

“It’s very exciting, but also very sobering to be finding a new species of primate when tropical forests are under so much stress right now,” says Thomas Gillespie, an ecologist at Emory University who was not involved with the study.