Compared to other primate groups, molecular genetic data for colobines are still limited and much of their phylogenetic relationships, particularly within genera, remain unknown. In recent years, however, more molecular genetic work has been done and revealed interesting and unexpected insights into colobine evolution. In this chapter, we review the current knowledge about colobine phylogeny and phylogeography, and present and discuss results from published and unpublished mitochondrial sequence data.

In this chapter, I give an overview of the taxonomic classification of living colobine monkeys, primate subfamily Colobinae. With ten genera, 78 species and 124 taxa (species and subspecies) currently recognized, colobines are one of the most diverse primate subfamilies. Here, I follow the taxonomy proposed by Mittermeier et al. and Rowe and Myers, and discuss taxonomic changes over the last 50 years. Although our knowledge on colobine diversity and evolution increased considerably in recent decades, the current taxonomic classification of colobines should be regarded as preliminary and further changes will be required when additional data on ecology, behaviour, morphology and genetics become available. However, besides the need of additional biological data we need also to agree on how to classify colobine diversity (i.e. which species concept is applied) in order to establish a refined and broadly acceptable colobine taxonomy.