Our Research Paper

Chacma baboons are the largest species of monkeys. Males can weigh from fifty-nine to ninety-seven pounds and are twenty to thirty inches long. Females can weigh thirty-one to thirty-seven pounds and are sixteen to twenty-four inches long. The Chacma live in the southern countries of Africa. They have close set eyes, under a heavy brow, and a dog like muzzle with sharp tusks like upper canine teeth. Also having olive-gray fur, with tails that reach up to 2 feet long.
The Chacma can breed every 1.5 to 2 years. Mating can occur at anytime of the year. For each couple, they can produce a number of 1offspring(that’s the usual number of offsprings that they can have). While raising an offspring, the chacma only take care of them for 12 months. After, the young chacma baboons are free to carry on with life and proceed with surviving on their own. Female chacma baboons can reproduce after 3 years. Male chacma baboons can reproduce after 5 years. The Chacma can usually live up to 45 years old when their in captivity. It’s unlikely for them to live this long if they are out in the wild. Home ranges between 910 and 3,370 ha have been reported. The daily range of a troop varies between 1,609 and 14,484 m.
Teeth chattering and lip smacking are signs of reassurance. Usually performed by a dominant male when another is coming towards him. A female may also lipsmack when approaching a mother and her infant. As in all highly social species, communication is varied and complex. The Chacma utilizes visual signals and gestures, vocalizations, and tactile communication. Juveniles and infants produce some vocalizations unique to how old they are. These include chattering, which is a nasal, grunt-like call emited during play. They also give an ick-ooer sound which communicates a low level of distress. Adult females produce a vocalization during copulation called a muffled growl. The mouth is closed, and the cheeks expand and contract during this call. Tactile communication is common in cercopithecines. Social grooming is used to reinforce social bonds, as well as to remove parasites and debris from the fur. Social mounting is a reassurance behavior. Anubis baboons also perform a friendly nose-to-nose greeting.
The Chacma are quadrupedal, terrestrial primates. They are highly social animals, having a complex multi-male and multi-female social structure. Some cases, one-male units (OMUs) may form within the broader multimale multi-female society, resulting in substantial differences in behavior. All males emigrate from their natal troops. Besides settling in a new troop, males must establish themselves in the male dominance hierarchy of that troop. This typically involves aggressive behavior between males, with the "winner" of an encounter establishing dominance over the "loser." Males do not maintain long-term bonds with their male kin; as is seen in hamadryas baboons. Females behave differently toward one another then they do towards unrelated animals. Chacmas are most likely to aid their kind than they are to become involved in disputes of unrelated individuals. These relationships can extend over multiple generations, with females aiding not only their own offspring, and aunts aiding nieces, but grandmothers aiding their granddaughters. Additional differences in feeding have been noted. Multi-male troops of chacma baboons often forage on fresh grass, Cypress crowns, and the tubers of aquatic plants, especially those of Nymphaea caerulea, or a water lily. OMUs avoided these pants, and focused their foraging on the fruits of the Kigelia pinnata tree, the green seeds of Acacia nigrens, and figs (Ficus sycomorus and Ficus burki). These food sources were ignored by multi-male groups. Unlike hamadryas baboon females, chacma females seem to be less responsive to the OMU male. Female chacma baboons do not respond to male stares. This may be because the male chacma in an OMU does not herd the females as aggressively as does a hamadryas male, and does not bite their necks as a hamadryas male would. However, if females stray too far from the rest of the group, the chacma baboon OMU male will herd the female back into the fold.
The Chacma are known to eat fruits, including Kigelia pinnata fruit and figs from both Ficus sycomorus and Ficus burki. Chacmav also eat leaves, including the crowns of Cypress trees, tree gums, insects, eggs, seeds, including the green seeds of Acacia nigrens, flowers, water lilies (Nymphaea caerulea), grass, rhizomes, corms, roots, tubers, and small vertebrates. One feeding adaptation thought to be shared by all baboons is the ability to subsist on a relatively low quality diet. Baboons can subsist on grasses for extended periods of time. This allows them to exploit dry terrestrial habitats, like deserts, semideserts, steppes, and grasslands.Primary Diet: Omivore.Animal Foods: birds; mammals; reptiles; eggs; carrion; insects; terrestrial non-insect arthropods.Plant Foods: leaves; roots and tubers; wood, bark, or stems; seeds, grains, and nuts; fruit.