12/8/14
I love primates. Seeing chimpanzees and gorillas in the wild are dreams I have not yet fulfilled, but I love seeing any monkeys or apes. During our Africa trip we often encountered two different species.
The chacma baboon is a very large monkey weighing up to100 pounds that inhabits southern Africa. They live in social groups called troops in a variety of habitats. It was not unusual for us to encounter 50-100 baboons at a time! These troops contained several adult males, many females and their offspring. It was clear who the dominant male was by his size and the respect the other baboons gave him. Watching the kids play was a total delight.
These omnivorous baboons forage during the day looking for fruit, insects, seeds,
Baboons also use very loud calls when they feel threatened. Our guide knew that there was a large predator around when the impala were all looking in one direction and the baboons were screaming. Within a short while we were able to locate a leopard in the area. Thanks baboons!
We also enjoyed seeing Vervet monkeys. These mostly vegetarian monkeys have black faces and gray body hair. They are much smaller than baboons weighing only up to 15 pounds and they spend much of their time in trees. They also have alarm calls when predators are in the area.
Vervet monkeys are very naughty. Bob and I encountered them on our honeymoon in the Caribbean where they are famous for stealing tourist drinks. It was quite odd to find drunken monkeys staggering around some of these beach bars.
In southern Africa, the vervets associate humans with food. Staff at the lodges were constantly chasing them away from the food tables and it was common to see them peering down from the trees. One day on safari, we were stopped for tea and cookies, and a vervet monkey jumped on one of the woman in our group and grabbed her cookie in a flash. They were pretty bold in some of the national parks but always fun to watch.