Titch
Bush Baby (Galago senegalensis)
About me
| Basic Info | Home: | Southern Africa is the place to be if you're a Bush Baby (or Galago), with Angola, Tanzania and Zimbabwe popular countries for us to reside. |
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| Size: | Oh so tiny, just a cheeky wee 17cm at best, about the length of a pencil. Our tails can be just as long as our bodies though, if not longer! | |
| Favourite foods: | You know those beautiful, colourful butterflies that float gracefully and harmlessly around the forest? Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie! I may follow that up with a beetle or two and if I'm particularly munchied then a moth will do nicely, all washed down with some tree fluid (or exudate). Might go for a snooze after that actually, that's one big meal! | |
| Environment: | Me and my chums hop like kangaroos around tree branches, using our tails for balance and leaping 5 metres into the air – not bad, eh? In the evening when it's time to take the snoozy train to slumberland, we group up and nod off in thick vegetation, tree forks, hollow trees or my personal favourite, old birds' nests. You snooze, you lose birdies! | |
| Sounds like: | A baby crying, hence the name.....WWWAAAAAAHHHHHHH! CHIRP, CHIRP CHIRP! |
| Further Info |
Bush babies' big eyes and big ears give them great night vision and fantastic hearing, which adapts them well for nocturnal lifestyle. These little animals also urinate on their hands in order to give them good grip on branches when climbing! This also helps them scent mark their territory. Flat discs of thickened skin at the ends of their digits also help in grasping tree trunks and branches, and generally anything slippery! Their predators include small cats and snakes, from whom they escape by leaping up, down or along through the trees. There is evidence that some bush babies come together to mob predators smaller than themselves. Mothers nurse their offspring for approximately 3 months, with the little one clinging onto her thick fur in transport or being carried in her mouth. Their life span in captivity can be up to 10 years, but in the wild it is no more than 3 or 4 years. They are known to have particular ‘facial expressions’ to communicate ‘emotional’ states |
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