A baboon with an olive-grey coat that lives across African grasslands and forests.
The coat is dark olive-grey, and males have a mane over the front of the body.
Olive baboons at Mpala in Kenya tend to choose places that other troop members have recently passed through. They move away from their sleeping site in the morning and toward it in the evening, and often continue along a road after reaching it. Their routes reflect both the movements of companions and the surrounding landscape.
A 2017 paper analyzed the first fourteen days of position records from 25 baboons tracked during August–September 2012. Individual route-choice models were fitted for the sixteen animals with complete records for that period. The researchers combined these trajectories with habitat maps derived from aerial photographs taken in 2015, comparing actual destinations with alternative places the baboons could have reached.
The number of companions that had occupied a location within roughly four and a half minutes was the highest-ranked predictor of route choice. Locations recently used by more companions were more likely to be selected, while roads and the direction of the sleeping site also mattered. The authors proposed that following others might reduce exposure to danger or the effort required for navigation.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
A 2016–2017 study around Maze National Park in Ethiopia documented maize and other crop damage by olive baboons and conflict with farmers. Residents reported guarding their fields. The 2021 paper recommended sharing guarding duties among villagers and having residents and park authorities jointly investigate crops that might be less attractive to baboons. These were proposals to protect rural livelihoods while supporting baboon conservation.