Hamadryas Baboon
| More Animal Resources Types of Animals Types of Monkeys |
The brown to light color fur of the Hamadryas Baboon (Papio hamadryas) provides camoflage for its habitat, grasslands and rocky outcrops of the Horn of Africa.
Research suggests that a second population on the Arabian Peninsula evolved separately.
Their social system, single male, multifemale groups, are optimized for living and reproducing in a food scarce environment.
They are omnivores, and one of the most recent research efforts attempting to understand their diet, Composition and Seasonality of Diet in Wild Hamadryas Baboons concludes:
"the main plant food components of the diet of adult male hamadryas baboons, as measured by time spent in feeding bouts, were doum palm fruits and various parts of A. senegal (depending on the time of year). Dietary breadth, defined as the number of plant foods contributing to the diet, was reduced during the dry months of the year, and 4 plant species in particular comprised the diet almost exclusively during some of these months.with native grasses forming the bulk of their diet.
As with the other four baboon species, Hamadryas Baboons are sexual dimorphic, with males twice the weight of femals. Average height comes in at about two and one-half feet, minus the tail.
While they are considered pests in areas where their range overlaps with agriculture farm land, their extended range means the aggregate population is stable. The IUCN lists them as as a species of least concern.
© 2010 Patricia A. Michaels.