horakhti73: Why has eyebrow-raising become a form of communication among baboons?
Guy Norton: I suppose the "why" is that most primates communicate nonverbally using facial expressions, and the eyes and eyebrows would be some of the most available ways of signaling. So it's a way of nonverbally communicating attitude or intent. The same kinds of expressions could be used for different communicative purposes in different species, but you would expect there to be similarity in function between closely related species.

horakhti73: Do baboons use tools or weapons?
Guy Norton: That's never really been observed in baboons by anybody to my knowledge. They handle and use objects, but not in a sufficiently purposeful way to call them tools.

vsweet1228: What's the most dangerous aspect of working in the field with baboons?
Dawn Hawkins: The most dangerous animal we encounter in the field is the mosquito because it carries malaria. The top three large mammal hazards are buffalo, lion and elephant. The grass is over 3 meters tall over a lot of Mikumi and even elephants can be hard to see! Mikumi has poisonous snakes, e.g. spitting cobras, black mambas and puff adders, but encounters with them are rare. However, the biggest hazard about working in Mikumi is not in the field, it's in getting there — traveling on the road from Dar es Salaam is the most dangerous thing we do!

vsweet1228: How do yellow baboons differ from other baboons?
Guy Norton: There are five types of baboon, and there's a debate as to whether they are separate species or subspecies. Regardless of where you stand on the debate there are meaningful biological differences between the five forms. The Hamadryas baboon occurs in arid or semiarid areas in northeast Africa and Arabia and is the most different from the other forms. The Guinea baboon occurs mostly in or near forests of West Africa and is also quite different. There are three savanna, or open habitat, species, which are the olive, the yellow (which is what we study) and the Chacma. The yellow tends to be lankier and less robust in appearance compared to the olive and the Chacma, and it is the most tropical species in that it occurs entirely in the tropical zone, where the olive ranges into subtropical areas in the north and the Chacma occurs in subtropical areas in the south. But the biggest difference is that yellows tend to occur in more wooded habitat on average, which is the typical habitat of much of tropical Africa.

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