Ethiopia: Simien Mountains NP – Last Morning with Geladas

We couldn’t help but go and spend another morning with gelada baboons at the edge of the escarpment. As the sun rose and the air warmed up from freezing, the monkeys emerged from the caves and started congregating at the edges of the escarpment, grooming each other and nearly posing for best photo-ops, hundreds of them! The geladas usually spend several hours in the morning on grooming and social interactions within their clans, before proceeding to feeding grounds to spend most of the day grazing. Interestingly, geladas have the most complex social structure of any mammal after humans. They also have voice repertoire (over 30 different vocalizations) that is second to only humans in the animal world. Geladas are also the world’s most terrestrial primates after humans.