#geladas

[psikonauti]

The Grassland Geladas

Photographed by Marco Gaiotti

[sitting-on-me-bum]

The Grassland Geladas

Two gelada monkeys and a baby sit in Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains, with rain clouds looming in the background.

by Marco Gaiotti

Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award

[antiqueanimals]

Album of Abyssian Birds and Mammals. From paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. 1930.

[arthistoryanimalia]

Geladas (Theropithecus gelada) painted by Louis Agassiz Fuertes (American, 1874-1927) in 1926-7 and reproduced as offset lithographs in Album of Abyssinian Birds and Mammals, 1930 by the Field Museum (who also hold the original watercolors in their library collection).

Note - Referred to as "Gelada Baboon" in the book, but recent phylogenetic studies place them in a separate clade from other baboons, so simply "Gelada" is preferred...they are also called the "Bleeding-heart Monkey" because of the red skin patch on the chest.

[Biodiversity Heritage Library]

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

Gelada baboons along their cliffside.

[acti-veg]

Early Riser by Riccardo Marchegiani, Italy

Marchegiani could not believe his luck when, at first light, this female gelada, with a week-old baby clinging to her belly, climbed over the cliff edge close to where he was perched. He was with his father and a friend on the high plateau in Ethiopia’s Simien mountains national park, there to watch geladas – a grass‑eating primate found only on the Ethiopian plateau. At night, the geladas would take refuge on the steep cliff faces, huddling together on sleeping ledges, emerging at dawn to graze on the alpine grassland.

[rjzimmerman]

Are Gelada Cries the Closest Thing We Have to Human Speech?

Are geladas one evolutionary adaptation away from being capable of human speech? Studies show that in our own primate ancestors,

Another reason, odd but important, why we should protect our Earth co-inhabiting species.......to understand more about ourselves.

[punchfun]