The golden angwantibo (Arctocebus aureus) is a strepsirrhine primate of the family Lorisidae that is endemic to west-central Africa. It is native to Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, where it can be found in small, localised distributions. It is a medium-sized lorisid of about 22 centimetres (8.7 in) in length and weighing 210 grams (7.4 oz), and is the smaller of the two angwantibo species. The pelage of the golden angwantibo is of a lustrous orange hue with a woolly texture, differentiating it from the duller Calabar angwantibo (Arctocebus calabarensis). It possesses typical strepsirrhine traits such as a toothcomb and grooming claws on the second pedal digits. The index fingers of the manual digits are absent, which is an adaptation that facilitates gripping branches and lianas for its slow, cryptic style of locomotion. As an angwantibo, it possesses a unique thorax consisting of overlapping ribs, which may play a role in predation avoidance or balancing the animal as it climbs. The golden angwantibo's usual habitat is the understorey strata of rainforests beneath 5 metres (16 ft) in height, but it is also found on farmland and in treefall gaps. It is a nocturnal and solitary but social animal, with a primarily insectivorous diet that favours difficult-to-process species such as various caterpillars. Its dietary specialisation for noxious insects allows it to exist in sympatry with other insectivorous strepsirrhines through resource partitioning. Adult individuals typically sleep by themselves, with the exception of mothers, who sleep with their infants. Mothers practice infant parking, whereby their offspring are left alone while the parent forages. The golden angwantibo is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List as a least-concern species. Threats include hunting for bushmeat and the extraction of body parts for traditional medical practices. The golden angwantibo is possibly the least-studied lorisid, which obscures estimates of the abundance of this species in light of these threats.
Etymology "Angwantibo" is derived from the Efik language, first used in scientific literature by John Alexander Smith in his 1859 presentation of a description of the Calabar angwantibo to the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh. The term, relayed to Smith through the writing of Scottish missionary Rev. Alexander Robb, was derived from the Efik word angwán, meaning "farm", and an unknown suffix. An alternative etymology proposed by Smith relates angwán to the Efik word for "cat", which is an onomatopoeia of a cat's vocalisation. Other vernacular names for the species include mese tsere in Fang, koundé in Kota, and sologou in Bekwil. The golden angwantibo is also known as the southern golden potto in English.
Taxonomy The golden angwantibo is one of two species of genus Arctocebus, the other being the Calabar angwantibo. Along with the pottos of Perodicticus, angwantibos constitute subfamily Perodicticinae of family Lorisidae. The taxonomic status of the golden angwantibo is relatively uninformed by molecular data, as it is likely the least-studied lorisid.
Changes in taxonomy The golden angwantibo was described in 1902 by William Edward de Winton in the Journal of Natural History. The holotype, an adult male, was collected "50 miles up the Benito River" in the French Congo by George Latimer Bates in 1901, and was afterwards held in the British Museum. Following Ernst Schwarz's 1931 revision of potto taxonomy, A. aureus was classified as a subspecies of the Calabar angwantibo throughout the remainder of the 20th century. Some scientists, such as Ivan T. Sanderson, dissented from this arrangement and upheld its specific status. Data collected from golden angwantibos during this period were occasionally confounded by a lack of subspecific specification. In 1913, Oldfield Thomas described a new species of angwantibo, A. ruficeps, based on a juvenile female specimen captured by Bates in Metet, Cameroon earlier that year. Thomas noted that A. ruficeps was "agreeing with [A. aureus] in all points in which it differs from A. calabarensis", and differentiated A. ruficeps from the golden angwantibo on account of its darker pelage. A. ruficeps was later described as synonymous with A. aureus by Schwarz in 1931, who speculated that Thomas' 1913 holotype was an immature golden angwantibo that exhibited darker, subadult pelage.
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