A Shy Monkey with Orange Lips Steps Out of the Trees

Professor Pip adjusted his slightly crooked spectacles and patted the bulging pockets of his forest-green lab coat. Out came a small brass telescope, a pocket notebook labeled "Notes," and a folded photograph.

Mia, Leo, and their friend Asha were crouched beside him in a warm, sun-dappled clearing. Somewhere high above them, leaves rustled.

"Today," Pip whispered, "we are being forest spies. There's a monkey up there that scientists only just met!"

"Just met?" said Leo. "Didn't people already know all the monkeys?"

Pip's tail swished. "Curiouser and curiouser! That's the puzzle. Look at this." He held up the photograph. It showed a glossy black monkey with a bright orange patch around its mouth, like it had just eaten a very ripe mango.

"Whoaaa," said Asha. "Its lips look painted!"

"The local people call it Likweli," said Pip. "They've known it a long time. But scientists needed lots of proof to say, officially, 'this is a brand-new kind of animal.' So here's the game: How do you show something is truly new?"

He pulled a small speaker from his pocket. "First — listen." A low, froggy roar rumbled from the speaker. The kids gasped and giggled.

"That's this monkey's voice. No other monkey roars quite like that. Next — look closely." He passed the telescope. "Their skulls, their teeth, even the shape of their ears — all a little different."

"And then," Pip added, "the biggest clue of all. Scientists checked the tiny blueprint inside its body — its DNA. Every living thing carries a set of instructions. Likweli's instructions are so different from other monkeys' that they must have gone their own way about five million years ago."

"Oh!" said Mia. "Like when my cousin and I are family but we don't look the same because we grew up in different houses?"

"Exactly right!" Pip beamed. "This is what scientists call a new species — a group of living things that only really belong together. And it took an eighteen-year search, a blurry old photo, listening walks with local people, and a lab full of scientists to prove it."

Above them, leaves shivered. A pair of orange lips peeked over a branch — and vanished.

Pip smiled up at the canopy. "There are still creatures on Earth who don't know they have a name yet. What might YOU discover in your own backyard? Notebook out, spies. Let's start looking."