One of Mark Shuttleworth's privileges is to decide what the code name for upcoming Ubuntu versions is. It's usually a real animal and now it's a monkey whose name starts with V and, as usual, it's probably a species you’ve never heard of before.

With very few exceptions, some of the names chosen for Ubuntu releases send the older users to the Encyclopedia Britannica and the new ones to Google. Shuttleworth generally chooses animals that are less known and the names usually have something in common with the release.

For example, Trusty Tahr, the name of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, followed the idea of long term support for the operating system, hence the trusty adjective. Precise Pangolin did the same for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and so on. Intermediary releases are not all that obvious and the Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn is proof of that.

Still thinking about the monkey whose name starts with a V?

The way the version number is chosen is pretty clear. The first part is for the year and the second one is for the month, so Ubuntu 14.10 is actually Ubuntu 2014 October. On the other hand, the names only follow a simple rule, one adjective and one animal, so the choice is rather simple. Unlike other communities, where the designation is decided by users or at least with their participation, Ubuntu is different, although it's not a singular example.

"Release week! Already! I wouldn't call Trusty 'vintage' just yet, but Utopic is poised to leap into the torrent stream. We've all managed to land our final touches to *buntu and are excited to bring the next wave of newness to users around the world. Glad to see the unicorn theme went down well, judging from the various desktops I see on G+."

"In my favourite places, the smartest thing around is a particular kind of monkey. Vexatious at times, volant and vogie at others, a vervet gets in anywhere and delights in teasing cats and dogs alike. As the upstart monkey in this business I can think of no better mascot. And so let's launch our vicenary cycle, our verist varlet, the Vivid Vervet!" says Mark Shuttleworth on his blog.

So, there you have it, Ubuntu 15.04, the operating system that is scheduled to arrive in April 2015, will be called Vivid Vervet. I won't keep you anymore for details, I'm sure you are already looking up the vervet on Wikipedia.