Many African tribes are superstitious about the little Bushbabies or Galagos of Africa - its laughing, chattering sounds are attributed to a mysterious giant snake with a feathered head, arrayed in rainbow colours, which kills evil intruders by pecking a neat hole in their head!
Here are10 interesting facts about this little primate:
1. Bush Babies are found throughout East Africa as well as in the woodlands and bushlands of Sub-Saharan Africa
2. Bush Babies' fur can be different colours. It may be lighter brown to a greyish brown with yellowish sides arms & legs
3. They sleep during the day. Several Bush Babies often share a nest in a thicket of vegetation or tree hollow.
4. Delicate bat-like ears allow Bush Babies to track insects in the dark and catch them in flight.
5. Bush Babies hunt for food during the night. They have such awesome hearing that when they sleep throughout the day, they need to fold up their ears to cover their ear holes. This prevents the sounds of the forest from waking them up.
6. There are at least 20 different kinds of Bush Babies, but scientists think there may be around 40 because they haven't all been discovered yet.
7. They have enormous forward-facing eyes so large in relation to its head that they cannot move them in their sockets. If they want to shift their gaze they have to turn their whole head. Consequently, they can look directly backwards over their shoulders.
8. They mark their territory by urinating on their hands and thus spreading their scent as they leap around from tree to tree.
9. When leaping between thorny bushes Bush Babies fold back their ears to protect them
10. Bush Babies are named after their childlike wailing cry they use to demarcate territory and communicate with their family members.
Conservation in Southern Africa is rapidly becoming unsustainable without the active involvement of the community, especially the younger, more active generation. The Bushbabies Monkey Sanctuary and The Elephant Sanctuary group strongly believe that we have to get the younger members of communities involved to instill a passion for the environment and wildlife in them through education.
I'll introduce you to Joyce, for example. A young female capuchin, she was rather pampered with child-like paraphernalia; a dress and a small hat around her head. Cute, indeed. She had been with her "foster" family since only two months old, bought straight from a breeder. The couple who owned her did not have children, and so decided to substitute the missing link with a primate, albeit a bit smaller...and with sharper teeth.
