This is a bushbaby, or galago, given to me by a Belgian businessman. I kept her at my apartment for a time, in a large cage on the porch. She had a peculiar sweet odor that may have come from the fact that she marked the branches with a brownish secretion from her genitals. Books describe the odor of the urine as "maple syrup."I didn't mind the bushbaby's smell; what led her to be banished from my abode was her over-exuberant playful habits, which occurred at night, because bushbabies are nocturnal. When I would let her out to exercise in the evening, she would jump on my head, and then land on my hands, and nip my fingers. She was never aggressive and the bites would stop short of breaking the skin, but they were painful pinches.
The bushbaby quickly wore out her welcome; she never tired of biting my hands, and her cage was soon relegated to the animal facility. Eventually, I found a good home for her with an expatriate who had a male of the same species.
The Senegalese Bushbaby is a wide-ranging African animal that lives is social groups of up to twenty individuals. They build nests in branches, but also seek shelter in the hollows of trees, such as the baobab. They consume a wide variety of foods such as insects, fruits, nectar, flowers, gums, shoots, seeds, nestlings, and lizards.
Bushbabies use their long and flexible ears that actually fold down (pleated ear seen in photo), to orient themselves to the sound of insects. Africans will sometimes fashion a grass string harness to imprison a beetle, grasshopper, or cicada to flutter, buzz, and vibrate. This will attract bushbabies who will approach to investigate the possibility of a meal.
Photo by D. Messinger
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