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Sun, 28/01/2007 - 11:50am
I'm fairly new here and have a question about the 'monkeys'. I see them id-ed as vervets and as baboons. My 'zoo experience' confirms baboons as having the large protrustion at the tail end. However, I don't see that with the ones we see on the cam. I'm assuming these are a different species???? I have googled both vervet and baboon and, honestly, can't see much of a difference except maybe in size, per the images on Google. Is there an obvious difference in the two on Africam that perhaps I am not seeing? Thank you.
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Fan of Everything Club, too. Saw it live-Big 5..TWICE!!
Yes, here I do, Sheila. The vervet has the dark face and is smaller...correct? And, fur color is lighter in the vervet?? I only saw 'monkeys' up close once and that was quite a while back. Now that I'm thinking about it...they were baboons. Guess I'll have to get closer to my monitor next time they show up. 
As for the ids in the cam photos...I'll go do a comparison there, too. Again, thank you, friend.
WildlifeCampus.com offers two solutions for those seeking either a cursory/ moderate or in-depth look at Southern African primates and these species in particular.
There is the Primates Module in our Game Ranging Course which looks that both species, or better, our Behaviour Guide to African Primates which take an in-depth exploration of the Vervet Monkey and Chacma Baboon as stand alone components.
The following excert is from the latter course, all Components are supported by scores of imagery.
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Vervet: Cercopithecus aethiops
Other common names: grivet, green, tantalus monkey
The common monkey of the African savanna, light-coloured with a black face.
Length and weight: (head and body) 38 - 62 cm, tail 42 - 72 cm, 5 - 9 kg.
Size dimorphism: (head and body) males 49 cm and 5.5 kg, females 45 cm and 4.1 kg (Botswana series).
Teeth: both sexes with long, sharp canines.
Colouration: geographically variable, from silvery gray to olive, yellow, or reddish green, underparts white to yellowish; black face framed with white ruff and brow band (variably developed in different races), eyelids pale pink; hands, feet, and tail tip conspicuously black in some races; adult males with pale blue scrotum, red penis, and white perineal skin, similar to colours of oestrous swelling in some females; natal coat dark and silky, face skin pink.
Scent glands: possibly present on cheeks, jaw, and chest.
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Baboon: A large, terrestrial monkey with a doglike head (cynocephalus means "dog-headed").
Weight: up to 50 kg; average of Papio races and species, adult males 23 kg and adult females 11 - 12 kg ; P. h. ursinus from Botswana, adult males 32 kg (27 â 37), adult females 15.4 kg (14 â17).
Length: head and body, ursinus males 72.5 cm (72 - 73), tail 60 - 84 cm; females 60 cm (52 - 65), tail 56 - 61 cm.
Teeth: razor-sharp 5 cm canines in males only.
Eyes: Small, deep and close-set beneath prominent brow ridge;
Ears: sizeable and nearly naked.
Limbs: sturdy, nearly equal in length, hands and feet short and wide with stubby digits.
Coat: coarse, hairs brindled, length varying from long, males with well-defined cape in Guinea and olive baboons, to short in yellow and chacma baboons.
Colouration: reddish brown (papio), olive-brown (anubis), yellow-brown (cynocephalus), to greenish-brown with blackish lower limbs (ursinus); newborn black with red face and rump, juveniles distinctly lighter than adults; males darken and females lighten with age. Bare skin of nose, lips, ears, and extremities black, eyelids whitish. Callosities and adjacent rump skin same colour as face in adults, shiny and often with purplish tinge (pinkish in P. h. papio), female sexual swelling the largest of all monkeys, most extreme in captive animals.
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