i have a zoo

Chapter 110 Gelada

[If you have the opportunity to take a plane and look down from the sky above the East African continent, apart from the boundless grassland, you must also see the shocking huge scar. The torn picture is almost the same as the disaster scene in the movie. In the meantime, the lake water flowing downhill adds to the magnificence. This is the largest fault subsidence zone in the world today-the Great Rift Valley of East Africa. 】

The Great Rift Valley in East Africa, known as the "scar of the earth", is the largest fault zone on the earth, with a total length of more than 8700 kilometers.In European and American novelists in the Middle Ages, this rift valley was compared to a dark, gloomy, rocky, lifeless regional entrance.

But in fact, although the mountains are undulating, the Great Rift Valley is vast and full of vitality. It is one of the important habitats for many wild animals.

This passage, Zhao Jia and the others saw this sentence as soon as they approached the tribal-style arch in the African-style area. It is already a photo of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa.

"The African style here is really strong! No wonder it is called the African style area." Tao Yingying looked at the African-style trinkets in her sight with great interest.
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At this time, in an office building near the waterfront in Jiangzhou, a middle-aged man with eyes was clicking a PPT on the projection screen.
"It is often said that where there is water, there will be life. For the Northeast Rift Valley, there are not only dense virgin forests in the distance, but also vast grasslands that can't be seen nearby, plus a suitable climate and less Without human intervention, it is well-deserved to see this place as a paradise for wild animals.

The Great Rift Valley not only inhabits many species that are common in the African continent, but also lives in the world's only grass-eating "monkey" - Gelada baboon.

They got their name entirely because the tuft of hair on their tail resembles a lion's tail. Of course, apart from this most conspicuous feature, it has to be the obvious chest spot near their "pectoral muscle".

This chest spot usually does not show mountains and dews, but once it enters the estrus stage, the chest spot will turn into an eye-catching red, so the locals also call it "red heart baboons".

Everyone here may be wondering, don’t all monkeys love to eat fruits?So what's the difference between a grass-eating monkey and a non-grass-eating monkey?

But relatively speaking!Vegetarian options are wider, and fruits, flowers, nectar, and young leaves are all vegetarian.

The food of the grazing monkeys, the Gelada, refers to grasses. In their diet structure, the proportion of roots, seeds, stems and leaves of plants can account for more than 9%.

Although this allows the Gelada baboons not to worry about food shortages, after all, grass is easier to obtain than fruits.

However, the high proportion of grasses in the diet also has some impact on them.

Because grass does not provide much nutrition, they need to eat constantly to maintain their daily needs.

Just like giant pandas who love to eat bamboo, geladas spend most of their waking hours on "eating".

Compared with hunting by carnivores or climbing up and down by arboreal animals, what the gelada has to do is to find a lush pasture and then sit on the ground. After the grass in front of it is roughly plucked, it moves towards the next place, so lazy that even the buttocks I didn't bother to lift it up, grinding out a thick layer of cocoons.

This also happens to explain why geladas have chest spots, because their buttocks rarely have the opportunity to be seen by the opposite sex. The existence of chest spots makes things easy to solve. The sign of estrus is transferred from the buttocks to the chest, so that no matter what posture , As long as the faces are facing each other, it can be seen at a glance. In this way, it will neither delay filling the stomach nor delay the inheritance of the family.

In fact, not only mating is affected by grazing, but the crisis of survival is also highlighted by the openness of the grassland. Group members can still warn each other when eating, but sleeping at night becomes a problem.

In order to avoid the predation, the gelada decided not to take the usual way, they mastered the ability to spend the night on the cliff.This is a bold choice by a skilled person. After all, there is always the danger of being crushed if one is not careful, and any small mistake will be infinitely magnified on the rock wall that is difficult to rely on.

In order to cope with the difficult environment, Gelada baboons need to receive rock climbing training since childhood. After evolution, they have evolved a finger structure that is completely different from other tree-dwelling monkeys-Gelada baboons have thicker and longer thumbs and shorter index fingers.

There is no space on the rock wall to grasp and the role of the thumb is to firmly grasp the cracks in the rock. In this way, even on the cliff like a moat, the gelada baboon can still find a favorite stone bed safely. Falling asleep is like a blue sheep that was once hotly discussed, walking on the ground in a nearly vertical place.

As a social animal, the scale of Gelada far exceeds that of most species. This complex intertwined relationship can be regarded as a clan, with the overall number ranging from hundreds to thousands, of which dozens Small families, each consisting of dozens of members.

Similar to lions, female geladas are the absolute main force of the family, and they are basically related by relatives.

In order to better protect the family and complete the mating mission, each family will also select a male as the facade.

Note that it is selection, that is to say, the initiative of "choose who not to choose" is in the hands of the wives of the family. "The overlord pushes the bow" will not work here. If the male guy cannot satisfy the wives, or in the If you fail in the fight for the leader of the competition, then you have to accept the reality of leaving the field sadly.

Although the social structure of living in groups makes the competition for food more intense than scattered, the benefits obtained are incomparable. Although Gelada baboon is a large monkey with a weight of thirty to forty catties, it can be said that Also just a grass-eating monkey, they are rations for many predators in the grassland food chain.

On the weak side, enough members can maximize the early warning range when eating. Whether it is to find danger approaching from the southeast, northwest or even from the sky, early warning can make more members take action. As for the communication method, there is nothing It is more direct than sound.

Surprisingly, in addition to warnings, different families sometimes make different voices, as if they are exclusive and only internal members can understand them.

The Gelada also has a pair of scary fangs like other baboons, but why does this obviously herbivorous monkey have exaggerated big fangs when it opens its mouth?
The reason is simple. The ancestors of the gelada are also more extensive, and their ancestors were meat-eating. For example, the Gelada baboon, which appeared in the early Pleistocene more than 200 million years ago, is a species evolved from prehistoric gelada.According to the research of paleontologists, the Gelada baboon is omnivorous. The male Gelada baboon has a shoulder height of 1 meter and a weight of 100 kg. It is the largest species of "true monkey" ever.

"Okay, gentlemen, the relevant information about the Gelada baboon is almost finished!"

(End of this chapter)