In the alpine grasslands of eastern Africa, Ethiopian wolves and gelada monkeys are giving peace a chance. The geladas – a type of baboon – tolerate wolves wandering right through the middle of their herds, while the wolves ignore potential meals of baby geladas in favour of rodents, which they can catch more easily when the monkeys are present.
When walking through a herd – which comprises many bands of monkeys grazing together in groups of 600 to 700 individuals – the wolves seem to take care to behave in a non-threatening way. They move slowly and calmly as they forage for rodents and avoid the zigzag running they use elsewhere, Venkataraman observed.
Venkataraman and his colleagues followed individual wolves for 17 days, recording each attempted capture of a rodent, and whether it worked. The wolves succeeded in 67 per cent of attempts when within a gelada herd, but only 25 per cent of the time when on their own.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27675-monkeys-cosy-alliance-with-wolves-looks-like-domestication/
Those Ethiopian wolves always remind me of Br'er Fox, for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI am so proud of myself for not making the Dingoes Oyt mah Boyby joke.
ReplyDeleteWho's going to tell him?
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