Baboons

Baboons

Baboons belong to the Old World monkey family, Cercopithecidae. They are found in Africa, south of the Sahara as well as in the Saudi Arabia desert (Class Notes 6/12/01). There are five subspecies of baboons including the hamadryas, the Guinea, the yellow, the chacma, and the olive baboons.

BABOONS AND THEIR HABITAT

The baboon is the most widespread primate in Africa. Well-known for their remarkable ability to adapt, baboons can be found in a variety of habitats, ranging from semi-desert to rainforest, and from coastal areas to mountains. Their adaptability also extends to their feeding habits — baboons will eat just about anything. The baboon's diet includes a wide variety of plants, of which they eat every part: leaves, fruit, buds, flowers, roots, bulbs, tubers, seeds, shoots, bark and even sap. As for meat, these resourceful monkeys will eat insects, shellfish, small reptiles and amphibians, rodents, birds, fish, eggs and even young antelope or livestock.

Several kinds of baboons live in Africa and southwestern Arabia. These include the hamadryas baboon, which lives on plains and rocky hills of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and eastern Africa near the Red Sea, and the chacma baboon, which inhabits rocky regions and open woodlands in southern Africa. Olive baboons inhabit the Kekopey cattle ranch located near the town of Gilgil, Kenya. “The central part of the ranch consists of open grassland studded with occasional patches of bushy shrub, scattered thornbush, and small groves of giant fever trees” (Smuts 17). They eat a wide variety of foods including insects, flowers, leaves, fruits of bushes and herbs, and most significant of all, the grass itself. “Baboons eat the green blades of grass during the rainy seasons and dig for corms-the underground storage organ of sedge grasses-when the ranch is dry” (Smuts 17-18). They can carry food in pouches inside their cheeks.

Probably the most serious predators of baboons are the large carnivores such as cheetahs and leopards. Baboons live mostly on the ground but sleep in such places as trees or cliffs. “Throughout Africa baboons achieve some protection from nocturnal predators by sleeping in tall trees or on cliffs (Smuts 19). Usually each troop sleeps on a different cliff, but occasionally two troops will share a single sleeping site.

In addition to the predators previously mentioned, baboons share their range with antelope as well as other large mammals including zebra, warthog, jackals, and African buffalo.