ist of some 300 yellow baboons living in more than six groups in Amboseli, near Mount Kilimanjaro. By studying these creatures, the Altmanns have shown that the baboons, which are among the most adaptable of non human primates and which can be found living in environments ranging from semi desert to forest, have a social structure which centers on females and kinship and not on males and fighting. The females also have a dominance hierarchy, and daughters inherit their mother's rank in a fairly strict fashion. The males migrate from one group of animals to another and fight their way up the social hierarchy,but the females remain with their mother's group all their lives. This makes the female hierarchy and kinship bonds the stable core of the social structure of each group (Campbell www2.uchicag.edu).
Among the behaviors observed by the Altmanns were many individual variations. Jeanne Altmann discovered how the parenting skills of mothers, which were previously seen as innate behaviors, were found to vary widely with dominance rank. Low-status mothers are more protective of their offspring and are also more likely to give birth to sons, a mysterious adaptation that makes sense because a daughter would be saddled with the low rank of the mother (Campbell www2.uchicag.edu).
The yellow baboon tends to monopolize the ecological niche for a monkey able to forage in trees and on the ground, and the animal also ranges far from refuges. The savanna baboon has replaced other baboons in many regions. The animal is able to satisfy its need for water largely from food and dew. Most troops are able to drink regularly, and they are known to dig wells in dry streambeds. their diet includes a wide variety
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