Hamadryas baboon

The hamadryas baboon is a monkey that lives in dry, rocky country in the Horn of Africa and southwest Arabia. It is the northernmost baboon. Males grow a silver-white mane and mantle when they are around ten years old, which looks like a cape. Females are brown and have no cape, and males are nearly twice their size.

It lived in ancient Egypt too, where people held it sacred. It is an omnivore that eats seeds, grasses, roots, fruit and leaves, and also insects and small animals. It is more at home on cliffs and rocks than in trees, and has tough pads on its bottom for sitting on sharp rock.

Life in a troop

Hamadryas baboons live in layers. The basic unit is a family group of one male and several females, and many families join into bigger groups that can number in the hundreds. At night, hundreds of them gather to sleep together on cliffs.

They live in dry places, so they need cliffs to sleep on and water holes to drink at. The baboons travel to look for water.

Sacred baboons of Egypt

Ancient Egyptians connected this baboon with the god Thoth, and it appears in several roles in their religion, so it is also called the sacred baboon.

Today the baboons are no longer found in Egypt, but they survive in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The baboon's name hamadryas comes from the Greek word for a tree nymph.

On the globe

The globe places the hamadryas baboon in the Horn of Africa and southwest Arabia. Look for the male's silver mane.