Olive baboon

Olive baboons eat lots of different foods.

They eat grass, fruit, seeds and roots. They also eat bugs and eggs.

Olive baboons are omnivores that eat a huge variety of foods: fruit, seeds, flowers, grass, roots and tubers, tree gum, insects, eggs and sometimes small animals.

When the dry season comes and fruit and young leaves run out, baboons dig up roots and tubers. They can even live on grass for long periods. This is one reason they can survive in so many places. Near farms, some troops raid crops, which upsets farmers.

The diet includes fruits, tree gums, insects, eggs, seeds, flowers, grass, rhizomes, corms, roots, tubers and small vertebrates (Animal Diversity Web). Baboons can subsist on grasses for long periods, which lets them exploit dry habitats.

Food supply tracks rainfall: fruit, young leaves and flowers are plentiful late in the rains, and as the dry season advances baboons switch to underground foods (Primate Info Net). Where people farm, troops raid crops and garbage; crop-raiding males average about 27 kilograms, heavier than naturally foraging males, and grow up faster.

Baboons live in big family groups called troops.

They groom each other's fur. Big males bark "wahoo" to warn of danger.

Olive baboons live in troops of about 15 to 150, with several adult males, many females and their young. The females stay in the troop they were born in all their lives, but young males leave to join another troop.

Baboons have friendships! Some males and females spend time together, groom each other and share food, and the male helps protect her babies. Baboons talk with barks, grunts, faces and touches. Big males give a loud "wahoo" bark when they see a lion or leopard.

Troops of about 15 to 150 contain several adult males, numerous females and young (Primate Info Net). Females are philopatric and form lifelong matrilineal bonds; males transfer after puberty, at six to nine years, and may move several more times. Males compete in a dominance hierarchy, but coalitions between older males and long-term "friendships" with particular females also shape mating.

Communication is visual, vocal and tactile. Adult males give a two-phase bark, the "wahoo", toward feline predators or rival males (Animal Diversity Web). Troops travel, forage and sleep together, so the availability of safe sleeping trees or cliffs limits their movements.

There are lots of olive baboons.

But some take food from farms. People are finding ways to share the land.

The olive baboon is listed as Least Concern: it is common across a huge area. But as more land becomes farms, troops raid crops, and some farmers trap or poison baboons.

People have tried scaring baboons away with recorded alarm calls, guard dogs and bad-tasting chemicals, but clever baboons soon learn to ignore them. In Kenya, more than 130 baboons were moved by 1984 to places far from farms, to keep both baboons and farmers safe.

The IUCN assessed Papio anubis as Least Concern in 2020. Primate Info Net describes habitat loss and growing conflict where human populations expand: troops become crop pests, and farmers poison, trap and shoot them. Deterrents such as alarm-call playback, chemical repellents and guard dogs work only briefly because baboons learn to avoid them.

Translocation has reduced persecution: at Gilgil, Kenya, more than 130 baboons had been trapped and moved by 1984. Disease is another risk: a 1982 tuberculosis outbreak in a Kenyan troop came from eating infected beef at a slaughterhouse dump.