Hamadryas Baboon Adopts Chicken as its Own
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A lonesome Hamadryas Baboon in a private Lithuanian zoo near the port city Klaipeda has adopted a chicken as his own that he saved from certain death last month and the pair have quickly become good friends, the zoo’s director Edvardas Legeckas said.
Photo Chi King
The chicken was destined to be a meal for other animals in the zoo, but escaped and was sheltered by Mitis, a 6 year old Hamadryas Baboon, the director told Reuters.
“Mitis has been fed chicken meat before, but this time he fell in love with his food.” Legeckas said. “He plays with the chicken, cleans its feathers, sleeps with it, and takes care as if it was his own baby child.”
“But I am not sure how long this affair would last, because baboon may finally realize this is food.”
Baboons, with their distinctive long dog-like muzzles and heavy powerful jaws, are omnivorous, but usually prefer fruit. In the wild, they live in close-knit social groups, reports Yahoo News.
“Obviously this baboon needed someone to communicate with.” the director said.
Photo Chi King
Hamadryas Baboons live in arid sub-desert and Savannah woodland. They’re found in Somalia, Ethiopia, parts of Yemen, and across the Red Sea on the Arabian Peninsula.
Adult males are larger than the females, and have long, dense, silky grey fur. Females are olive brown, and infants are black. The average adult height is 2 feet (60 centimeters). Males weigh up to 45 pounds (20.5 kilos) and females up to 25 pounds (11.5 kilos).
Both males and females have bright pink hairless faces and rumps. Their leathery sitting pads allow them to sit and sleep upright on vertical cliffs rather than in trees, which may be shared by as many as 800 baboons from several troops.
Hamadryas Baboons have a four level social structure. An adult male dominates a group of up to 10 females called his harem. Two or more of these units, with single male followers, make up a clan. Several clans make a band, and several bands together form a troop. Hamadryas baboons live in a very harsh environment, with extremes of both heat and cold. They travel up to 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) a day foraging for food and water.
Their diet typically consists of grass, seeds, roots, tubers, leaves, small vertebrates, termites, and other insects.
Photo Dan Leow
Usually a single baby is born after a five month pregnancy. The young baboon is born fully furred and rides on its mothers back, remaining dependent on her for learning and support until it’s 2 years old. The baboons have a life span of about 37 years in captivity.
Hamadryas Baboons are Old World monkeys related to other cheek pouch monkeys, including the five other species of baboon, drills and macaques.
The Hamadryas Baboon was the sacred baboon of the ancient Egyptians, often pictured on temples and monoliths as the attendant or representative of Thoth, the god of letters and scribe of the gods. Baboons were mummified, entombed and associated with sun-worship. This is the only non-human primate found in Arabia. They’re also known as the sacred or ‘mantled’ or Arabian baboon.
Photo A.J. Haverkamp
In baboon society, staring and baring their teeth are considered a threat.
These animals are very social and are stressed by isolation. A direct stare is a threat. To threaten in return, they will raise their eyebrows, showing their white eyelid and partially open their mouth, displaying formidable teeth. Intensifying the threat, they may yawn, raise their hair, slap hands and feet on the ground, grind their teeth and scream. Fear is shown by a ‘grin’ with no eyelid threat. They have a number of calls — alarm is given by a dog like bark.
Hamadryas Baboons are much like humans when it comes to male baldness — some go bald, some don’t.
Males have exclusive breeding rights to their females and control their movements.
Grooming is a social activity which relaxes and unites members of the group.
Human wars have been a serious threat to Hamadryas Baboons.
Sources: Wellington Zoo and SCZ
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I was loving this photos until I got to the one at the bottom with the teeth. I kinda wish you had left that one out.
Sorry David, I didn’t think it would have offended anyone. I used it to depict the mention of how they display a threat.
They appear to be rather passive creatures, with no mentions of fighting whatsoever in what I read. Something like this display would be more than enough to scare me off
absolutely amazing pictures! i will being going to africa next year, i hope i can take pictures as good as these!
0hhhhhh ….that is so sweet Deborah…I do hope that he doesn’t eat the chicken……I think there could be quite a few chicken jokes in regards to this story
I used to see them in Animal Planet.
Subconscious Mind, I wish I could take pics like this myself
Kim, they’re certainly an interesting pair. My aunt had a poodle that dopted some chics on her acreage when I was a kid. It made the local papers
Kids, Animal Planet has some very interesting programs. I rarely have time for watching TV myself tho.
This is so unnatural for animals. Anyone with a logical idea on how this was possible?
Still funny but makes no sense right?
What a lovely story, it shows we really don’t know a lot about animals and what makes them tick.