Theropithecus gelada, Is. Geoffr., Arch. Mus., ii., p. 576 (1841).
Theropithecus senex, Schimp. et Puch., Rev. et Mag. de Zool., 1857, p. 51.
Gelada rüppellii, Gray, Cat. Monkeys Brit. Mus., p. 33 (1870); Garrod, P. Z. S., 1879, p. 451.
Characters.—Male.—Body large and massive; head oblong; face produced, rounded, and nude below the superciliary ridge; nose long and depressed in its middle region, but elevated at the tip upon the deep upper lip; head crested, with long hair, rising from the superciliary ridge, and descending to a long and mantle-like mane on the back of the neck and shoulders, where the hair is longest, down to the loins behind, and as far as the elbow joints in front; whiskers very long, directed backwards over the ears, and downwards from the corners of the mouth; no beard; chin nude; a patch on the chest and one on the throat naked, separated from each other by a haired bar 1½ inches broad; tail long, round, erect for its basal third, then falling straight down as in other Baboons, and terminating in a long thick tuft.
Face, hands, feet and callosities deep black; nude chest-spaces florid; hair of whiskers, neck-portion of mane, sides, arms, and lower margins of the mantle-like mane dark sooty chocolate-brown; breast, chest, shoulders, fore-arms, hind quarters and tail (except the terminal tuft) black; tail-tuft brownish-black, with a few white hairs; abdomen paler brown than the hair generally, though still dark; hair bordering the nude chest-spaces iron-grey from the presence of numerous short grey and white hairs; nipples close together on the lower nude chest-space; nails of hands longer than those of the feet. Length of the body, 29 inches; of tail, 24¾ inches; to tip of terminal tuft, 32 inches.
Skull shorter than in Cynocephalus; canine teeth very large; posterior lower molars with a large fifth cusp; upper molars with a large front talon; cranial crests strongly developed; nasal bones high, narrow, separate, and not fused together.
The affinities of T. gelada are more with Cercopithecus than with Cynocephalus, and still less with Macacus.
Young Male.—Similar to the adult, but the mane shorter, and more curly; and the brown colour, wherever it occurs in the male, is lighter in colour.
Female.—Coloured like the young male, but smaller than the adult male, and with shorter hair, darker at the tips; hair longest between the shoulders; loins paler than in the male; nude chest and throat-spaces united into one, which is carunculated along its borders, and without white hairs along the margins; callosities carunculated.
Distribution.—Southern Abyssinia; in the provinces of Heremat and Godjan.