
Morphological, molecular, fossil and biogeographical data bearing on early primate evolution suggest that the clade containing extant (or 'crown') strepsirrhine primates (lemurs, lorises and galagos) arose in Afro-Arabia during the early palaeogene. Galagos are confined to Sub-Saharan African in almost all wooded habitats. Four genera and 20 species are currently recognised with at least four species yet to be named. The smallest or dwarf galagos (> 200g body weight) from the genus Galagoides comprise of seven species, all of which are primarily forest dwelling species. The Rondo galago was fully described as a species in 1996 but, it was discovered in the 1950s when tiny galagos were collected from the Rondo and Makonde plateaux by the medical researcher R.W. Hayman, and were deposited in the Natural History Museum, London. They were then variously identified as Demidoff’s galago “
Galago demidovii” known from the Congo basin and later the Mountain galago “
Galago demidovii orinus” (Jenkins 1987) known from the East Arc Mountains of Tanzania and Kenya. Unusually the Rondo galago occurs together with other (larger) dwarf galago Galagoides species these are the Zanzibar galago (
Galagoides zanzibaricus) and Grant’s galago (
G. granti) depending on the locality. It is hypothesised that the Rondo galago may have evolved out of an ancestral dwarf galago that occurred in the region at a time when the Congolean forest belt extended right across to East Africa in wetter times. The Rondo galago may thus represent a derived and isolated form from an old galago lineage.