High in the Simien Mountains, researchers are getting a close-up look at the exotic, socially adventuresome primates known as geladas
By Abigail Tucker
Photographs by Anup Shah and Fiona Rogers
Geladas are isolated, oddball monkeys that science has largely overlooked. They live in large herds in the towering Simien Mountains of northern Ethiopia.
(Theropithecus gelada)
Amharic: Gelada
The Semyen highland massif is considered to be the finest scenery in all Africa and it is for this reason, and the fact that the area is the home of the Walia Ibex, the Semien Fox and the Gelada Baboon that it has now been gazetted as a national park.
(Tragelaphus seriptus meneliki)
Amharic: Dukula
Belonging to the same family as the Mountain Nyala, the Kudu, the Bongo and the Eland, the bushbuck shares with them the family characteristic of shy and elusive behaviour. Over forty races of bushbuck have been identified, which vary considerably both from the point of view of colouration and from the type of habitat they frequent. Most of them are forest- living animals inhabiting dense bush, usually near water, though this is not an essential, as some of them have been known to go without drinking for long periods when necessary.
(Capra W'alie)
Amharic: Walia
The habitat of the Walia Ibex is the High Semyen, Ethiopia's dramatic high mountain terrain. In the earth's long history of violent geographical change, the most recent volcanic upheavals took place in eastern Africa, followed by torrential rains which created the thousand gushing waterfalls which in turn eroded away the newly formed mountain massif, creating the great gorges and gulleys which are so typical of the region. South west of Axum the land descends gradually southwards toward the Takazze river. At the lip of the gorge at about 1,400 metres (4,600 ft.) one can look across the chasm to a similar plateau beyond. On top of this plateau, adorned with steep turrets and bastions rising in three distinct steps, is perched the north wall of the Semyen.
(Alceluphus buselaphus swaynei)
Amharic: Korkay
The common African hartebeest has fifteen races of which two are already extinct and Swayne's is seriously endangered. In 1891-2, Brigadier-General Swayne, who discovered the animals, was the first European to visit the area well south of the Golis range of Somaliland and about 200 kms.
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