Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus came close to claiming the dubious honor of being the first primate to be declared extinct in more than 500 years after repeated failed searches. But evidence from hunters appeared in 2000 and 2001 that suggested that a very small number of these monkeys may be living in the southeast corner of Côte d'Ivoire. It was first discovered in 1933 by a British museum collector who named it after a colleague on the expedition, Miss F. Waldron, with the last conclusive sighting of the monkey in 1978. No photographs or video of the species alive exist.

Although the quest to find Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus Monkey with partners the Swiss Center for Scientific Research in Côte d’Ivoire and Florida Atlantic University has not yet uncovered photographic evidence of the monkey in question, it has produced striking footage of other rare and endangered primates. This includes the Critically Endangered White-thighed Colobus, Endangered White-naped Mangabey, and the first-ever video of a Critically Endangered Roloway Monkey in the wild, captured high in the canopy of Côte d'Ivoire’s Tanoé-Ehy Forest in west Africa. Upcoming expeditions will focus on searching for this lost primate closer to the interior of the swamp.