A Match Made in Malawi

By Bruce G. Marcot, Ecology Picture of the Week:

At a lodge along the shores of Lake Malawi in south-central Africa, I found this most unusual couple. A domestic dog had befriended a vervet (or green) monkey. They seemed to more than just tolerate one another ... the vervet seemed to use the dog as protection from other, aggressive monkeys. In turn, the dog received companionship and perhaps a little grooming.

Vervets can become pests. At this lodge, the monkeys snuck up on our outdoor dinner table and tried to snatch food.  At a cabin where I stayed in Victoria Falls National Park in northern Zimbabwe, vervets would sneak inside and steal fruit and defecate on the table. I chased a large male who took a banana back into the forest and then calmly sat and ate out of arm's reach in a tree while I scolded him.

But being a pest carries risks. Vervets are often shot or poisoned when they raid crop fields.

Vervets have been traded and sold for many decades throughout the world, and have become commensals with people, although they should not be used as pets. Vervets often benefit by close association with humans, such as with reduced predation by leopards and access to our food.

However, such benefits are not shared by humans. In Kenya, vervets are pests at hotels and form raiding parties, and will bite visitors and cause them to drop their food which is then quickly snatched up. More serious is when vervets raid agricultural crops, as has been studied in Uganda.The study suggested that crop-raiding significantly decreased when the gardens were 200 meters (660 feet) or more from the forest edge. Apparently, vervets depend on proximity to forest cover ... unless they have a guard dog to protect them!

  --Bruce G. Marcot

Image and text © Bruce G. Marcot, Ph.D. Research Wildlife Ecologist,
who produces the Ecology Picture of the Week website.