Wildlife Guide · Central Africa
Mandrill
Mandrillus sphinx (Linnaeus, 1758)
The largest monkey — in forests WARN does not fund.
In brief
The mandrill is the world’s largest monkey (Mandrillus sphinx), native to rainforests of Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Congo, and listed Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because of commercial bushmeat hunting and logging-road access. It is not a baboon. WARN does not run Central African patrols; this page is an educational guide, not a field-programme claim.
By the WARN Research & Conservation TeamChecked against IUCN Red List & CITES sourcesLast updated
The mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) is the world’s largest monkey, a forest primate of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Congo. Adult males are famous for red-and-blue faces and rumps; they live in large multi-male, multi-female groups sometimes called hordes. The IUCN Red List lists the species as Vulnerable, with bushmeat hunting and logging access as the main pressures. Central Africa is not in WARN’s partner network.
VU
IUCN Red List status
I
CITES Appendix
Largest
Monkey species by body size
Central Africa
Native rainforest range
Figures sourced from IUCN Red List — search Mandrillus sphinx, CITES Appendices, GBIF — Mandrillus sphinx .
Mandrill: Quick Facts
| IUCN status | Vulnerable (2019 assessment; decreasing) |
|---|---|
| CITES | Appendix I |
| Range | Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo |
| Diet | Omnivore — fruit, seeds, leaves, invertebrates, small vertebrates |
| Social structure | Large multi-male, multi-female groups (hordes) |
| Not a baboon | Genus Mandrillus, alongside the drill |
Scientific Classification
| Kingdom | Animalia |
|---|---|
| Phylum | Chordata |
| Class | Mammalia |
| Order | Primates |
| Family | Cercopithecidae |
| Genus | Mandrillus |
| Species | Mandrillus sphinx (Linnaeus, 1758) |
Conservation Status
- IUCN Status
- Vulnerable (IUCN Red List)
- Population
- See the IUCN Red List assessment — no global census is restated here
- Trend
- Decreasing
- Assessed
- 2019
- CITES
- Appendix I
Threatened primarily by commercial bushmeat hunting facilitated by logging roads. WARN does not invent a headcount the assessment does not treat as a precise global total.
Key Facts: Mandrill
- Mandrills are the largest monkeys; they are not baboons and not drills, though drills are their closest relatives.
- The IUCN lists Mandrillus sphinx as Vulnerable (2019) with a decreasing trend.
- Males are much larger than females and carry the extreme facial and rump colour that people recognise.
- Large group size makes them profitable for commercial hunters once logging roads open the forest.
- Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Congo are not in WARN’s partner-network country list.
Is a mandrill a baboon?
No. Mandrills belong to the genus Mandrillus, with the drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) as their sister species. Baboons belong to Papio. The two groups are related Old World monkeys, which is why older books and safari-park labels still say “baboon”, but the classification has not treated mandrills as baboons for decades. The field marks are obvious once seen: a mandrill’s face is ridged and brilliantly coloured in adult males; the rump matches; the body is stockier and more forest-adapted than a savanna baboon. Drills are darker-faced, with a different range centred on Cameroon, Bioko and adjacent forests, and they are Endangered — a more severe IUCN category than the mandrill’s Vulnerable listing. If a page shows a howler monkey, a gelada or a hamadryas baboon as a mandrill, the image is wrong. This guide ships without a hero photograph rather than reuse an unrelated monkey image, which is what an earlier stub of this page did.
Why are mandrill populations declining?
The IUCN assessment (2019) lists the mandrill as Vulnerable and decreasing. The primary pressure is commercial bushmeat hunting. Mandrills gather in large groups, so a hunter with a shotgun and access along a logging road can take many animals from one encounter. That is a different problem from subsistence hunting of scattered solitary animals. Logging does double damage. It removes forest, and it builds the roads that make the remaining forest reachable. Once a concession road exists, urban bushmeat markets become a realistic destination for carcasses. Protected-area paper boundaries do not stop that if patrols cannot reach the interior. Habitat loss from agriculture and settlement adds pressure at the edges of the range. The species still occupies a substantial forest block compared with, say, a Tapanuli orangutan, which is why it is Vulnerable rather than Critically Endangered. Vulnerable is not “safe”. It means a high risk of extinction in the wild if the hunting-and-roads pattern continues. CITES Appendix I bans international commercial trade in live animals and parts. That does not, by itself, stop domestic bushmeat markets.
Where do mandrills live?
Mandrills are native to the coastal and interior rainforests of western Central Africa: Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo. They are forest floor and understory foragers as much as canopy animals, which is why camera-trap and hunting data both pick them up on the ground. They are not native to East Africa, Southern Africa, Madagascar, Asia or the Amazon. A “mandrill” in a South African safari park or an Asian zoo is a captive animal, not evidence of a wild range expansion. Gabon’s Lopé and surrounding forests are among the better-studied sites, which is why horde-size figures in popular articles often trace to a small number of research projects. Group size can be very large — hundreds of individuals have been recorded — but that is not a census of the species, and it is not a reason to treat them as abundant everywhere in the range. None of those countries is in WARN’s active partner network (Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Kenya, India, Thailand, Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, Peru, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Uganda). A WARN page about mandrills is therefore educational geography, not programme geography.
How do mandrills live?
Mandrills are omnivores. Fruit and seeds matter; they also eat leaves, bark, insects, and opportunistically small vertebrates. They forage in large mixed groups. Adult males are substantially heavier than females — sexual dimorphism is extreme — and the brightest facial colour is a male signal tied to status and testosterone, visible even in dim understory. Calling the group a “horde” is established usage; it should not be read as a mindless swarm. There is structure: females and young form the core, males move in and out, and colour and size advertise rank. Captive mandrills in poor groups show the same social complexity and the same welfare problems as other large primates kept without space or a proper social set. They are not a beginner pet and not a backyard monkey. CITES Appendix I and national laws in range states exist because live trade and bushmeat both remove animals from the forest. A brightly coloured male in a photo is not an invitation to own one.
Does WARN protect mandrills in Central Africa?
No. An earlier version of this guide claimed WARN funded rainforest patrols and bushmeat interdiction in Central Africa. That was false. Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Congo are not partner-network countries. WARN does not operate anti-poaching teams there. What WARN does is fund partner-led rescue in the seventeen countries on its network list, and publish educational guides so that searchers and answer engines can quote accurate status, range and threats. A donation to WARN supports that model. It does not put a ranger in Lopé. Readers who want to help mandrills specifically should look for organisations that actually hold mandates in those forests, and should treat any UK website that implies otherwise as a credibility problem. WARN would rather lose a donation than describe a programme it does not run.
What WARN Does
WARN does not run a mandrill programme and does not fund field work in Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea or Congo — those countries are not in the partner network. This guide is part of WARN’s free educational library. The mandrill is listed Vulnerable because of bushmeat hunting and logging access, which is why a sourced page matters; it is not a claim that WARN patrols Central African rainforest.
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Mandrill: Frequently Asked Questions
Is a mandrill a baboon?
Are mandrills endangered?
Where do mandrills live?
What is the largest monkey in the world?
Why are male mandrills so colourful?
Do mandrills live in troops or hordes?
Does WARN work in Central Africa?
Can you keep a mandrill as a pet?
Sources & References
Population figures, conservation status and biological facts on this page are drawn from authoritative scientific and intergovernmental sources.
Terms used on this page
Plain-English definitions, from our wildlife and conservation glossary.
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