Africa vignette #9

One does not ordinarily think of baboons as predators, but apparently some of them do develop a taste for meat. We encounter a troop of baboons hanging out near the road, and one middle-sized one, probably an adult female, is gnawing on the rib cage of a dikdik (a very small antelope). Next to her is a larger baboon, presumably a male, showing moderate interest in the dikdik carcass, but not actively trying to take it away; at one point he reaches out tentatively toward the carcass, and she snatches it away, after which he just hangs out and watches.

We later learn that one of the other vehicles on our tour was present when the dikdik was killed, but didn't actually see it happen; they saw the dikdik running across the road, and then heard a ruckus in the undergrowth, and then the baboons emerged holding the corpse.

Dikdiks may be small, but apparently their horns are sharp and dangerous; our guide told us that a park ranger had been killed not long ago when a dikdik gored him in the gut.

It's a jungle out there on the plain.