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Article: Baboons that are into commitment
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- January 4, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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IN QUEST OF THE SACRED BABOON
A Scientist's Journey
By Hans Kummer
Princeton University Press, 324 pp., illustrated, $29.95
Weighing 45 pounds, flashing canines almost as long as those of
a leopard and sporting a lush mantle of long hair from shoulders to
hip, the male hamadryas baboon is an impressive sight. Particularly
if he is sitting with 750 of his fellow baboons along a cliff face.
But what is most striking to author and researcher Hans Kummer is
the lifestyle of the hamadryas. Kummer has devoted 20 years of study
to these animals because of their unique social structure. Hamadryas
baboons manage to incorporate "permanent marriages" into a
cooperative male society. The ...