Baboon

Who is it?

The baboon or yellow baboon is a monkey from central Africa (its ranges covers Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tanzania).

It has a large, wide snout, it is a ground-dwelling primate which comes down from the trees as soon as it’s born.

It has isquiatic callosities which harden its tissues, hence its resistance to immobility. The males are very stock and are covered in the yellow or brown fur from which their name derives. The inner surface of their arms, cheeks and the inner face of their thighs are white.

What are its habits?

Baboons are very organised and disciplined, in fact they are considered to be adversaries of other species (they don’t fear even leopards).

They live in very hierarchical troops and move around in an orderly fashion: the young and lower-ranking adult males at the front, together with females who are not rearing young; the dominant individuals go in the centre, protecting females with young. These leaders achieve their rank by force and intelligence, as well as by the length of their teeth.

Gestation lasts 170 days and the female usually give birth to one infant.

They are omnivorous and above all a lot of fruit, foliage and insects.

Did you know…

To establish friendship and relationship they normally remove parasites from and clean one another. In fact, that is what they spend much of the day doing.