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Cape Town (2) (3) (4) by Es Gedi

Via Flickr:

(1) View of Table Mountain and Cape Town from West Beach with a flock of migratory birds. (2) African penguins in their natural habitat at Boulders Beach, moving through the dunes and dense vegetation. (3) View from above the rocky ledges and sheer cliffs cutting deep into the ocean at Cape of Good Hope. (4) Close-up portrait of a chacma baboon observing the sea at the highest point overlooking Cape of Good Hope.

#coastal #beach #mountains #landscape #grasses #plantlife #penguins #sand #cliffs #ocean #baboons #chacma baboon #south africa #western cape #cape town

Day 109#: Chacma Baboon

Today's animal of the day is the Chacma Baboon (Papio ursinus)

Photo credit: Charles J. Sharp

This large species of baboon is native to the woodlands, savannahs, and deserts of southern Africa. They are one of the longest and heaviest species of monkey, with the largest males weighing around 99 pounds! There's some debate over whether or not mandrills are considered larger, since there are some exceptionally large males that can grow slightly larger. However, these individuals are somewhat rare, and on average, chacma baboons tend to be larger. Like most other baboons, they are sexually dimorphic, with the females being much smaller than the males. Though unlike many other baboons, male chacmas don't have manes.

Photo credit: Tony Rebelo

Chacma baboons are opportunistic omnivores that will eat anything that they can get their hands on. This includes fruit, seeds, tree bark, grasses, truffles, insects, worms, rodents, birds, and even small antelopes! There's one population that lives in the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa that has been observed gathering shellfish from the shore. Occasionally, these baboons will also raid human farms for crops and livestock, and as such, they are often considered vermin. While they normally run away when approached by humans, they are becoming more and more bold due to the baboons being attracted to the easy pickings found in the trash piles of human villages.

Photo credit: Paul Kingsnorth

These primates live in groups called troops that are usually made up of a few adult males, adult females, and their offspring. However, some groups may only have one adult male. Female chacma baboons tend to have fixed social hierarchies in their groups that they inherit from their mothers. Meanwhile, males have the ability to challenge the dominant male and increase their rank. Usually, when a new dominant male takes over a group, he will kill all unrelated juveniles in order to make their mothers go into heat so he can mate with them. To avoid this, females will often form very close friendships with the other males in their group. Not only will they groom and forage alongside them for food, but they will also often mate with their male friends. In fact, female baboons will often befriend and mate with multiple males within their troop. This friendship increases the likelihood that if a new dominant male takes over the troop and tries to kill that female's baby that her male friends will come to her defense, partly because she's their friend and partly because there's a chance that her baby is their offspring and they don't want it to be killed. Despite the close friendship that females and males form with each other, chacma baboons don't really form close bonds with members of their same sex, which is kind of unusual for baboons.

Photo credit: Harald Süpfle

Despite infantictide being fairly common, chacma baboons have also been observed adopting orphaned baby baboons, even when the baby was a member of a different troop that was introduced to the adoptive parents by humans as part of a study. In fact, of the three orphans that were used in this study, the only individual not to be adopted was a 16-month-old who was several months older than the next oldest orphan and capable of surviving on their own. One of the two main theories as to why these baboons will adopt orphaned members of their own species is that by adopting an orphaned member of their own troop, they are likely helping out an individual who is related to them, and so by helping them survive to adulthood, they are still indirectly passing on their genes. Another theory is that these baboons are adopting orphans to practice raising their own children. This is because most of the adult baboons who adopt an orphan are younger adults who haven't mated yet. Interestingly, these young adoptive parents can be both females and males.

Photo credit: Charles J. Sharp

As stated before, chacma baboons are interacting with humans more frequently due to humans developing the baboons' habitat for farms and cities. Not only are the baboons attracted to these areas by the promise of stolen crops and garbage to eat, but there also tends to be a lack of predators such as leopards and lions that draws the baboons in. However, these baboons aren't safe and instead have to deal with angry farmers with guns, traps, and poison. These baboons can also pose a threat to humans since they will often break into cars and houses in search of food. There's even been a report of a chacma baboon killing a human baby! Though fatal attacks on humans are still considered extremely rare. Sadly, while the overall species population is considered safe, there are specific regional populations that are expected to go extinct within the next 10 years due to human activities.