[2] Miss Waldron's red colobus was discovered in December 1933 by Willoughby P. Lowe, a British Museum (Natural History) collector[5] who had shot eight specimens of the animal.

Robert William Hayman named it after a fellow museum employee, Miss Fanny Waldron, who assisted in the expedition where Lowe collected the eight specimens.

High-canopy forests (rainforests) in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire serve as the exclusive habitat of Miss Waldron's red colobus.

A series of forest surveys, conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society from 1993 to 1999, failed to uncover any evidence of the monkey's existence,[7][8][9] and the animal was declared extinct a year later.

[9] However, the IUCN and other authorities which compile Red Lists felt that the required criterion that "there is no reasonable doubt that its last individual has died" was not yet fulfilled.