Rare baby mandrill monkey born at Paphos Zoo

Paphos Zoo is celebrating the arrival of its newest addition, a baby mandrill monkey born on October 22.
Mandrills are the world’s largest monkeys and are classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Zoo staff are not yet sure of the primate’s sex, as Romeo, as it has been named, is still firm-ly attached to its mother, but the Zoo’s Ioulios Christoforou told the Cyprus Mail that indica-tions so far point to it being a boy.

“We are thrilled that Romeo’s parents again mated and are doing a great job of looking after their offspring. This is the fourth baby for them and it shows that they are really happy as its difficult to breed primates,” he said.

At 16, Mum Eva is an older parent. She has a life expectancy of 27-30 years old in captivity. They live for around 20 years in the wild and become mature at about three and a half.

Dad Max is 14 years old, and as a dominant male, as is the case in both the wild and captiv-ity, has very different markings from other males.

“Max, as a dominant male, is about 37 kilos and has very specific characteristics. As a leader he is much larger and his colours are very vibrant and darker. Other males are smaller and duller,” Christoforou said.

Also living with the trio in their enclosure is MO, who was born to the pair last year, and as he is gaining his independence and not so attached to his mother, the group is working well, he added.

He stressed that primates will only breed if they are optimistic about their environment and their diet, if these are wrong they will not mate, he said.

It takes about five months from conception for the young to be born. Mothers take good care of them and won’t mate again until the young have matured.

Mandrills are omnivores and have a large appetite. They eat a diet consisting mostly of fruits and insects.

The group is being fed both local and imported fruit and a huge amount of in-sects that are bred in the Zoo’s own insect house, especially to feed animals at the facility.

Mandrills have also been known to eat eggs and small rodents in the wild.

“Max alone eats about 2 to 3 kilos of insects a day,” Christoforou said.

The mandrill is a primate of the Old World monkey family and is one of two species assigned to the genus Mandrillus. Both were once classified as baboons but they now have their own genus.
Mandrills are found in southern Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Congo and mostly live in tropical rainforests.

Christoforou noted that there are plans to increase the size of the mandrills’ enclosure in the future.

“There are plans to make every enclosure larger at the Zoo and we have already started, it takes time and money and we are further improving on what we already have,” he said.