Thanks,
I wonder how a warthog skull bronzed with the tusks left ivory would look, I've got a cleaned and bleached skull coming.

There is no category for the dumbest African trick, but this picture probably ought to go in the calendar contest. Why grown men, well experienced in Africa, and with a hearty recognition of the teeth on a baboon would want to grab one and put it in the damn boat with me, I don't know, but that's what the guys were doing.



As you can imagine, everything went straight to hell in a handbasket about 2 seconds after this picture was taken. The baboon let go of the tree and when the guys tried to throw what they had thought was an injured animal on the beach to "save" it from drowning (yeah, right!), it twisted in mid-air to land on its hind feet and came right back in the boat.



I'm sorry I don't have a picture of that, but four men were by then cowering on top of me. The baboon, his honor restored, simply stepped off the bow onto the beach and did the pimp roll down the sand a moment and then swam back to the same damn branch.



Boy, did I get a laugh out of that.



The catch and release!







The pimp roll after causing all of us to mess our drawers:







And back in the tree again...

JudgeG

On my one and only trip to Africa, the PH and I were bouncing around in the Landcruiser (him driving) and after I had my buff. (I was booked for a month and got him in the first 5 days) Suddenly we came on a baboon troop. What I guess was the "Alpha male" and I got into a staring contest at about 60 feet distance. He annoyed me with his baring of teeth and I got riled up and stared back. (Yeah,I guess I was as primitive as he was) The PH told me quietly: " Either stop that or shoot him". I looked at him. He said:" You're challenging him in front of the whole troop. He's going to come for you" I was astonished. (Didn't that dumb ape know I was in a big truck and could shoot him?) I had high respect for my PH and, no, I didn't want to shoot the poor beast. I stopped staring and dropped my eyes. He walked back triumphantly. He did scare me, I freely admit. The idea of having an angry baboon in a small boat really is scary!

JudgeG:

Certainly I agree about those teeth. Your post also reminded me that I have a picture of a hyena skull that I took in camp. (It was perched on a gypsum wall and I took the picture at night. It looks like something from prehistoric times -and to this day, no one ever has guessed what it is. The teeth are simply fearsome and I have always understood how they ground bones to powder. (My PH said the two critters in Africa that no one liked were crocs and hyenas)

I have seen one of those skulls and I fully understand you.

Regards,
Martin

Martin:

I never have forgotten those teeth! To me they were as frightening as the fangs of any other much bigger carnivores (like a lion) The odd thing is that I don't remember painted bottoms. Whether that was because I got spooked when the whole troop suddenly took off and wasn't paying attention to such details I just don't know. (I was in the Chirisa safari district of Zimbabwe. Maybe different type of baboons?