The mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) is a primate of the Old World monkey (Cercopithecidae) family,^[3] closely related to the baboons and even more closely to the drill. It is found in southern Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Congo. Mandrills mostly live in tropical rainforests and forest-savanna mosaics. They live in groups called hordes. Mandrills have an omnivorous diet consisting mostly of fruits and insects. Their mating season takes place from June to October.

Both the mandrill and the drill were once classified as baboons in genus Papio, but recent research has determined they should be separated into their own genus, Mandrillus.^[3] The mandrill is the world's largest species of monkey. Charles Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man that "no other member in the whole class of mammals is coloured in so extraordinary a manner as the adult male mandrills."^[4] The mandrill is classified as vulnerable by IUCN.

Description

The Mandrill's exotic coloring

The mandrill is perhaps the most colorful primate. It has an olive green or dark grey pelage with yellow and black bands and a white belly. Its hairless face has an elongated muzzle with distinctive characteristics such as a red stripe down the middle and protruding blue ridges on the sides. It also has red nostrils and lips, a yellow beard and white tuffs. The areas around the genitals and the anus are multi-colored, being colored red, pink, blue, scarlet, and purple.^[5] They also have pale pink ischial callosities.^[5] The coloration of the animal is more pronounced in dominant adult males. Both sexes have chest glands which used in olfactory communication. These, too, are more prominent in dominant adult males.^[6] Males also have longer canines than females, with an average of 4.5 cm (1.8 in) and 1.0 cm, respectively.^[7]

Males average 25–35 kg (55-77 lb); females are less than half that weight (11–14 kg, or 25-30 lb). Unusually large males can weigh 50 kg (110 lb).^[8][9] The average male is 81–90 cm (32–36 in) and the female is 56–66 cm (22–26 in), with the tail adding another 5–8 cm (2–3 in).^[10][11] They can survive up to 31 years in captivity. Females reach sexual maturity at about 3.5 years. The mandrill has one of the greatest sexual dimorphisms among the primates.^[12]

Ecology and activities

Mandrill with a flower

The mandrill is found in southern Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Congo. Its distribution is bounded by the Sanaga River to the north and the Ogooué and White Rivers to the east. Recent research suggests mandrill populations north and south of the Ogooué river are so genetically different as to be separate subspecies. Mandrills prefer to live in tropical rainforests and forest-savanna mosaics. They also live in gallery forests adjacent to savannas, as well as rocky forests, riparian forests, cultivated areas and flooded forests and stream beds.^[13][14] Mandrills will cross grass areas within their forest habitats.^[15][16]

The mandrill is an omnivore. It usually consumes plants and eats over a hundred species. It prefers to eat fruit, but will also eat leaves, lianas, bark, stems, and fibers. It also consumes mushrooms and soil.^[14] With animals, mandrills mostly eat invertebrates, particularly ants, beetles, termites, crickets, spiders, snails, and scorpions. It will also eat eggs, or even vertebrates such as birds, tortoises, frogs, porcupines, rats, and shrews.^[14] Mandrills likely will eat larger vertebrates, such as juvenile bay duikers and small antelope.^[17] One study found the Mandrill's diet was composed of fruit (50.7%), seeds (26.0%), leaves (8.2%), pith (6.8%), flowers (2.7%), and animal foods (4.1%), with other foods making up the remaining (1.4%).^[18] Mandrills are in turn preyed on by leopards, crowned eagles and certain snake species.^[15]

While mandrills are mostly terrestrial, they are more arboreal than baboons, and feed as high as the canopy.^[5][7] When on the ground, mandrills walk by digitigrade quadrupedalism. When in the trees, may move move by lateral jumps.^[13] Mandrills are mostly diurnal, with activities extending from morning to evening.^[19] At night, they sleep in trees, at a different site each night.^[14] In the wild and in captivity, mandrills have been observed using sticks to clean themselves.^[20]

Social behavior and reproduction

Mandrills seem to live in large, stable groups called "hordes". Hordes often number in the hundreds, possibly averaging around 620 individuals and reaching as many as 845.^[13][15][16] It is difficult to accurately estimate group size in the forest, but filming a group crossing a gap between two forest patches or crossing a road is a reliable way of estimating group size. The largest group verifiably observed in this way contained over 1300 individuals, in Lopé National Park, Gabon—the largest aggregation of nonhuman primates ever recorded.^[21] These groups are made of adult females and their dependent offspring.^[22] Males live a solitary lifestyle, and only enter hordes when female are receptive to mating, which last three months each year.^[15][22] Their are also rarer small groups of 50 individuals have been. All-male bachelor group are not known to exist.^[15][22]

Sleeping mother with young

The mating season of the mandrill takes place from June to October, which is when the sexual swellings of female occur.^[22] They breed every two years. When breeding, a male will follow and guard a female in estrus. Adult males exist in two different forms: the brightly colored and "fatted" dominant males and the paler and "nonfatted" subordinate males. Both males exchange in mating, but only the dominant males are able to sire offspring.^[16] Males sometimes fight for breeding rights which results in dominance. Though conflicts are rare they can be deadly and occasionally fatal. Gaining dominance, that is becoming the alpha male results in an "increased testicular volume, reddening of sexual skin on the face and genitalia, and heightened secretion of the sternal cutaneous gland".^[23] When a male loses dominance or its alpha status, the reverse happens, although the blue ridges remain brightened. There is also a fall in its reproductive success. This effect is gradual and takes place over a few years.^[24][25][26] When subordinates mate-guard a female, the competition between them allows the dominant males to have a greater chance of siring offspring,^[27] since subordinates outnumber dominates 21 to 1. There is also a dominance hierarchy among females, with reproductive success being displayed in shorter interbirth intervals amongst these alpha figures and the beginning of reproduction at earlier ages.^[27]

Mandrill births occur from January to May.^[28] Most births in Gabon occur in the wet season, from January to March, and gestation usually lasts 175 days.^[27] In captivity, 405 days separate each birth.^[27] Young are born with a black natal coat and pink skin. The females do most of the raising of the young. Alloparenting exists in this species, with female relatives providing care for the young.^[29] Males leave their natal groups when they are six years old and stay along the boundary of the social group.^[15][22]

Mandrills will make a "silent, bared-teeth face", in which the teeth are bared, the head crest is erect and the head shakes. This may serve as a peaceful form of communication.^[30][31] A mandrill submits by presenting its rump. With aggression, mandrills will stare, bob their heads, and slap the ground.^[31] Vocalizations like roars, crowings, and "two-phase grunts" are made for long distances, while "yaks", grunts, "k-alarms", "k-sounds", screams, girneys, and grinds are made at short distances.^[32]

Status and conservation

The mandrill is considered vulnerable and is affected by deforestion^[2] However, hunting for bushmeat is the more direct threat. Mandrills are particulary threatened in the Republic of the Congo.^[2] Nevertheless, there have been captive-bred individuals that have been successfully reintroduced into the wild.^[33]

References