Baboons
Baboons are highly adaptable primates found across a wide range of habitats in Africa, from the semideserts of Saudi Arabia to the forests of Cape Town, South Africa. There are several regional variants, including the chacma, olive, yellow, and Guinea baboons, previously classified under a single species, Papio cynocephalus. Their adaptability enables them to thrive in various environments, including human settlements, where they often forage for food, sometimes leading to conflicts with farmers. Baboons typically live in large social groups, known as troops, which can exceed one hundred individuals and are organized into matrilines of related females and their offspring, along with competing adult males.
The social structure of baboons involves complex dynamics, with males competing for mating access, and occasional aggressive interactions occurring within groups. The hamadryas baboon exhibits a different social organization, forming smaller units of one male and several females. Baboons have been the subject of extensive research in fields such as biomedical studies and anthropology due to their physiological similarities to humans and insights into the evolution of social behavior. Current understanding emphasizes that while baboons provide valuable information about social structures and environmental adaptations, their lifestyles may not directly reflect those of early human ancestors.
Baboons
Baboon Facts
Classification:
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Vertebrates
- Class: Mammalia
- Order: Primates
- Superfamily: Cercopithecoidea
- Family: Cercopithecidae
- Subfamily: Cercopthecinae
- Tribe: Papionini
- Genus and species:Papio cynocephalus (yellow baboon),P. hamadryas (hamadryas baboon),P. ursinus (chacma baboon),P. papio (Guinea baboon),P. anubis (olive baboon)
- Geographical location: Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Arabian Peninsula
- Habitat: Mostly arid, tropical savanna-woodlands, but also temperate areas and rain forests
- Gestational period: Six to seven months
- Life span: In the wild, baboons older than fifteen years are rare, but in captivity adults may live to twenty-five or thirty years
- Special anatomy: Reproductive females display a sexual swelling in the perineal region and around the buttocks that, at the time of ovulation, may contain several liters of fluid and turn bright red; adult males have extremely long canines which they use to threaten rivals, display their fighting ability to receptive females, or inflict wounds
Baboons are found as far north as the semidesert of Saudi Arabia (Papio hamadryas) and as far south as Cape Town in South Africa (P. ursinus). The regional variants of the cynocephalus (dog-headed) baboon (chacma in the south, Guinea in the west, olive in the north east, and yellow baboon in the southeast) are considered to be the same species by some. The northeastern variant, the hamadryas, was once considered to be the only type of baboon that was a separate species from P. cynocephalus, but genetic studies of the genus have shown P. hamadryas to be more closely related to P. papio and P. anubis than to the other species or subspecies. The degree of similarity between P. hamadryas and the other northern species and the degree of difference between the northern and southern species called into question whether there was any basis for considering P. hamadryas a separate species while combining the other four variants into a single species.
Baboons and Their Environment
Baboons are very numerous in Africa, and are among the most adaptable of all mammals. This adaptability also allows baboons to survive in wet forest and the driest semidesert regions. They eat almost any plant material or small animal they encounter. Baboons often survive quite well in and around human settlements. They sometimes cause severe crop damage when they visit farmers’ fields, since they are capable of eating even the toughest roots, such as cassava and sweet potato, but they also forage on farmers’ bananas and maize. Baboons can survive on garbage at tourist lodges, or find food in near deserts in Namibia, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia. Baboons sleep in trees or caves and cliff ledges, for protection from nocturnal predators.
Baboon Society
Except in the driest and coldest habitats, baboons form large groups and travel widely in the course of a day. Groups often exceed one hundred animals and contain scores of juveniles and females, plus a few adult males. These large social groups are composed of matrilines—a kin-group of sisters and their daughters who all descend from one female, plus their infant and juvenile male offspring—and unrelated adult males, who compete for mating access to females with sexual swellings. A large group can contain several matrilines, which may compete with each other over access to food, shelter, and male protection. The adult males in the group often fight fiercely among themselves, using coalitions to overcome single competitors. The typically calm life of moving in search of food is regularly interrupted by squabbles and mild competition over resources. More rarely, large fights break out within groups, and injuries follow. The most severe aggression is seen when a new adult male immigrates into a group, fights the other males to obtain high rank, and even harasses females and their young. Some cases of infanticide have been reported in such circumstances. The hamadryas baboons differ most in social organization. They do not build matrilines based on female kinship, but rather a female leaves the group in which she was born and bonds to a particular male as her future mate. This male plays an important social role as protector of a small group of one to three females. These small, one-male units travel and forage independently most of the time, but reunite with other units at night to form large herds often numbering in the hundreds.
Baboons have been studied extensively by biomedical researchers because of their physiological similarities to humans and because they are common animals in Africa. Baboons have also been studied intensively by anthropologists and evolutionary biologists interested in human origins. That is because the baboon evolved from an arboreal monkey that first exploited dry, open habitats some ten to twenty-five million years ago. In the past, anthropological theory suggested that our own ancestors followed a similar evolutionary pathway. Thus, baboons were seen for some time as a useful model for human evolution. This idea has changed somewhat over time as scientists have found that the group sizes, social organizations, and dietary habits of baboons probably do not mirror those of our ancestors. A more recent view holds that we can learn about antipredator behavior and habitat selection of our ancestors by observing baboons in similar habitats today.
Principal Terms
coalitions: short-term alliances designed to gain access to a contested resource, often by fighting
matrilines: several generations of adult females all related by common descent from one foundress (female ancestor)
sexual swelling: an estrogen-induced water retention that causes reddening and swelling in the perineal region and around the buttocks
Bibliography
Altmann, Jeanne. Baboon Mothers and Infants. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1980. Print.
Dunbar, R. I. M. Primate Social Systems. Ithaca: Comstock, 1988. Print.
Kummer, Hans. In Search of the Sacred Baboon. Translated by M. Ann Biederman-Thorson. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1995. Print..
Kummer, Hans. Social Organization of Hamadryas Baboons. New York: Karger, 1968. Print.
"Primate Factsheets." Primate Info Net. U of Wisconsin, 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.
Smuts, B. B. Sex and Friendship in Baboons. Reprint. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999. Print.