The mandrill is the most colorful primate. It has an olive green or dark
grey pelage with yellow and black bands and a white belly. Its
hairless face has an elongated muzzle with distinctive characteristics such as
a red stripe down the middle and protruding blue ridges on the sides. It also
has red nostrils and lips, a yellow beard and white tuffs. The areas around the
genitals and the anus are multi-colored, being colored red, pink, blue,
scarlet, and purple. They also have pale pink ischial callosities. The
coloration of the animal is more pronounced in dominant adult males. Both sexes
have chest glands which are used in olfactory communication. These, too,
are more prominent in dominant adult males. Males also have longer canines
than females, with an average of 4.5 cm (1.8 in) and 1.0 cm,
respectively.
The mandrill is the most colorful primate. It has an olive green or dark
grey pelage with yellow and black bands and a white belly. Its
hairless face has an elongated muzzle with distinctive characteristics such as
a red stripe down the middle and protruding blue ridges on the sides. It also
has red nostrils and lips, a yellow beard and white tuffs. The areas around the
genitals and the anus are multi-colored, being colored red, pink, blue,
scarlet, and purple. They also have pale pink ischial callosities. The
coloration of the animal is more pronounced in dominant adult males. Both sexes
have chest glands which are used in olfactory communication. These, too,
are more prominent in dominant adult males. Males also have longer canines
than females, with an average of 4.5 cm (1.8 in) and 1.0 cm,
respectively.
The mandrill has one of the greatest sexual
dimorphisms among the primates. Males typically weigh 19–37 kg
(42–82 lb), with an average mass of 32.3 kg (71 lb). Females
weigh roughly half as much as the male, at 10–15 kg (22–33 lb) and an
average of 12.4 kg (27 lb). Exceptionally large males can weigh
up to 54 kg (120 lb). The average male is 75 to 95 cm (30 to 37
in) long and the female is 55–66 cm (22–26 in), with the short tail
adding another 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in). The shoulder height while
on all fours can range from 45 to 50 cm (18 to 20 in) in females and 55 to 65
cm (22 to 26 in) in males. The male Mandrill is the heaviest monkey in the
world, although its total length is relatively short due to its vestigial tail
and, due to its high sexual dimorphism, baboons such as
the Chacma and Olive average around the same weight.
Compared to the largest baboons, the mandrill is more ape-like in structure,
with a muscular and compact build, shorter, thicker limbs that are longer in
the front and almost no tail. Mandrills can survive up to 31 years
in captivity. Females reach sexual maturity at about 3.5 years.
The wildebeest plural wildebeest or wildebeests, wildebeesties (juv)),
also called the gnu or is an antelope of
the genus Connochaetes.
It is a hooved (ungulate)
mammal. Wildebeest is Dutch for "wild beast" or
"wild cattle" in Afrikaans (beest = cattle), while Connochaetes derives
from the Greek words κόννος, kónnos, "beard", and
χαίτη, khaítē, "flowing hair", "mane". The
name "gnu" originates from the Khoikhoi name
for these animals, gnou.
Gnus belong to the family Bovidae,
which includes antelopes, cattle, goats, and other even-toed horned
ungulates. Connochaetes includes two species, both native to
Africa: the black wildebeest, or white-tailed gnu (C.
gnou); and the blue wildebeest, or brindled gnu (C.
taurinus). Fossil records suggest these two species diverged about one
million years ago, resulting in northern and southern species. The blue
wildebeest changed very little from the ancestor species, while the black
wildebeest took on more morphological changes to adapt to a habitat of open
grassland in the south. Today, the blue wildebeest has five subspecies, while
the black wildebeest has no named subspecies. In East Africa, the
wildebeest is the most abundant big-game species, both in population and
biomass.
Despite its name, the blue monkey is not noticeably
blue: it has little hair on its face, and this does sometimes give a blue
appearance, but it never has the vivid blue appearance of a mandrill,
for example. It is mainly olive or
grey apart from the face (which is dark with a pale or yellowish patch on the
forehead - the "diadem" from which the species derives its common
name), the blackish cap, feet and front legs, and the mantle, which is brown,
olive or grey depending on the subspecies. Typical sizes are from 50 to
65 cm in length (not including the tail, which is almost as
long as the rest of the animal), with females weighing a little over 4 kg
and males up to 8 kg.
The blue monkey is found in evergreen forests
and montane bamboo forests,
and lives largely in the forest canopy, coming to the ground infrequently. It
is very dependent on humid, shady areas with plenty of water. It eats
mainly fruit and
leaves, but will take some slower-moving invertebrates. It prefers to live in
tall trees which provide both food and shelter, and is therefore, like almost
all guenons, suffering from the loss of its natural habitat. Where pine
plantations replace natural forest, the monkey may be treated as a threat by
foresters, since it sometimes strips the bark from exotic trees in a search for
food or moisture. It is also hunted for bushmeat.
