Wellington Zoo is home to a group of seven Hamadryas Baboons, which is just one of the five Baboon sub-species. You can easily spot the alpha males with their impressive long silvery capes, while the younger males are brown.
As you might have noticed, they all have bright pink bottoms! These serve as cushions, so they can sit on thin branches high up in trees for really long stretches of time to stay safe from predators.
Baboons don’t appreciate eye contact and toothy smiles as much as we do – in fact; both of these things are considered threats in their societies. They respond by raising their eyebrows, showing the whites of their eyelids or baring their teeth to intimidate their enemies.
These beautiful beasts were very curious about my camera and just posed for me so well.
In the wild
IUCN: Least concern
Baboons are known as ‘Old World monkeys’, which means they come from Africa – as opposed to ‘New World monkeys’ from South America.
Hamadryas Baboons are also known as ‘Sacred Baboons’, due to their importance to the ancient Egyptians. Though currently extinct in Egypt, they are found in large populations in Ethiopia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
Human conflict is their biggest threat to these monkeys, who are mostly tolerated by farmers but will occasionally destroy agricultural crops and can become aggressive when approached.
I want to showcase our animal kingdom. It runs from Tuesday New Zealand time and is weekly. You can join in anytime at all over the week. You can post your furry friends (babies), wild animals, birds, insects and butterflies. Even reptiles are welcome.
Just use this logo and link back to this blog.
I look forward to seeing all the different animals around the world
Thanks for visiting
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