While generally living in small family groups, South African galagos communicate with one another over long distances using loud calls. These calls are thought to maintain contact within a group, advertise territory, or serve as an alarm. If an alarm call is heard other South African galagos join in and even mob the potential predator. Young call to their mothers using a clicking sound. South African galagos also employ olfactory modes of communication by "urine washing" their hands and feet. This behavior is more common in dominant males. It is also possible that the urine on the foot pads helps them to grip branches more easily. They also use allogrooming in social interactions.
Communication Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
Other Communication Modes: scent marks
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
South African galagos are on Appendix II of CITES which indicates they are currently at low risk for extinction and the IUCN Red List indicates they have a stable population without major threats. In fact, the range of G. moholi is expanding in some areas.
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: appendix ii
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
There are no known adverse effects of Galago moholi on humans.
South African galagos benefit humans economically by bringing researchers and ecotourists to regions they inhabit. They may reduce insect pest populations.
Positive Impacts: ecotourism ; research and education; controls pest population
South African galagos eat insects and provide food for large birds of prey and mid-sized mammalian predators.
South African galagos eat exclusively arthropods and tree exudates. Arthropods, including butterflies, moths and beetles, comprise the majority of the diet. Acacia gums also play a large role in the diet, especially those from Acacia karroo, Acacia tortilis, and Acacia nilotica. Plant exudates are scraped from the tree using the tooth-scraper on the lower mandible on nightly visits. Gums are released when moth and beetle larvae bore beneath the bark of the Acacia trees. Gums are available year round and are often relied upon more heavily during the winter months or in times of reduced insect availability. Galago moholi posses physical adaptations for eating plant gums, including a rough, narrow tongue capable of harvesting gums from insect holes and tree crevices, well developed tooth-scrapers and a proportionally large cecum and hindgut to digest complex carbohydrates. Galago moholi is a caeco-ansal fermenter with the cecum, proximal colon, and ansa coli each providing distinct chambers for fermentation. Gums get digested in the fluid phase and get fermented more quickly that other, more high quality, foods like insects. This allows South African galagos to consume a relatively nutrient poor diet.
Animal Foods: reptiles; insects
Plant Foods: sap or other plant fluids
Primary Diet: carnivore (Insectivore ); herbivore (Eats sap or other plant foods)
Galago moholi is found in southern Africa from Angola to Tanzania, including Zimbabwe, the Transvaal, and parts of Burundi and Rwanda.
Biogeographic Regions: ethiopian (Native )
South African galagos inhabit semi-arid woodlands, savanna woodlands, gallery forests, and the edges of wooded areas. They are often associated with Acacia trees, the exudates of which are dietary staple. South African galagos can be found at all levels of a forest canopy, often resting and breeding in the holes of Acacia trees and the hollowed out trunks of mopane (Colophospermum mopane) trees.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; tropical ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: savanna or grassland ; forest
Other Habitat Features: riparian
South African galagos have a maximum recorded lifespan of 16.6 years.
Range lifespan
Status: wild: 16.6 (high) years.
Average lifespan
Status: captivity: 16.6 years.
South African galagos are small prosimians with a head and body length of 14 to 17 cm. Males are larger, from 160 to 255 g, females are from 142 to 229 g. They have grey to light brown fur that lightens and takes on a yellowish tinge on the limbs and ventral surface. They have extremely large ears that have four transverse ridges that allow the tips to be bent down almost all the way to the base. The ears can be moved independently and are thought to be among the largest ears, proportionate to body size, of all primates. South African galagos have huge orange eyes that are surrounded by a dark mask of fur. The tail is an average of 11 to 28 cm and is dark in color. Galago moholi has the tooth comb and grooming claw typical of Strepsirrhini. In their ear canal the tympanic ring is fused with the lateral wall, like other galagos and lorises. They have longer hindlimbs than forelimbs with an intermembral index of 54 which makes them well adapted for vertical clinging and leaping. South African galagos have a chromosome number of 38.
Range mass: M: 160 F: 142 to M: 255 F:229 g.
Average mass: M: 211 F: 188 g.
Range length: 140 to 177 mm.
Average length: 160 mm.
Average basal metabolic rate: .2850W cm3.O2/g/hr.
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; homoiothermic; bilateral symmetry
Sexual Dimorphism: sexes alike; male larger
Average basal metabolic rate: 0.285 W.
South African galagos are preyed on by large birds, including eagles and owls, as well as snakes, mongooses, and civets and genets. They protect themselves from predation by nesting in tree holes and being active at night. Research suggests that Galago moholi lack seasonal torpor (heterothermy) to maximize reproductive success in a high predator environment. South African galagos avoid predation with warning calls among group members and agile leaping.
Known Predators:
Anti-predator Adaptations: cryptic
South African galagos have a polygynous mating system with territory of dominant males overlapping that of several females. Females have a brief estrous period, lasting 1 to 3 days, during which males become highly competitive, increasing their home range, body weight, and testes volume. Males appear to fall into two distinct mating strategy groups, larger and more dominant males who monopolize females with repeated matings and smaller males who are more opportunistic. Larger males procure more successful matings. Female G. moholi exhibit estrus swellings and do not have synchronized fertility.
Mating System: polygynous ; polygynandrous (promiscuous)
South African galago females and males become sexually mature around 300 days old. There are two mating seasons a year corresponding to births between January and February and between October and November. South African galagos may give birth to 2 sets of twins a year. Females construct nests in which to give birth to and raise their offspring. They may make their own, open-topped nest, or take over an uninhabited bird nest, mat of foliage, or tree hollow. After a 121 to 124 day gestation period, females give birth to offspring weighing approximately 10 grams that have their eyes open and are furred. Females give birth to a single offspring at their first pregnancy, then produce twins in subsequent litters. The mother carries the babies by the scruff of their necks for the first 50 days. Weaning occurs after approximately 93 days.
Breeding interval: South African galagos breed twice yearly.
Breeding season: South African galagos typically give birth once between January and February and again between October and November.
Range number of offspring: 1 to 2.
Average number of offspring: 2.
Range gestation period: 121 to 124 days.
Average gestation period: 123 days.
Average weaning age: 93 days.
Average time to independence: 50 days.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 300 days.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 300 days.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; viviparous
Average birth mass: 10.6 g.
Average number of offspring: 2.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
Sex: male: 300 days.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
Sex: female: 300 days.
The young are born furred and have open eyes at birth. They stay in the nest for the first 10 to 11 days. In captivity the babies are capable of clinging to branches within the first day and begin walking in a few days. Females nurse their offspring for about 11 weeks though young may begin to catch insects at 4 weeks of age. Mothers park their infants in tree forks or tangles of vegetation while they forage. The offspring will cling quietly and unmoving for up to three hours, being checked on occasionally by the mother. If the infant is in danger or left alone too long it will emit distress calls which quickly summon the mother. The female will carry the offspring to a safer location if she senses threat. After 10 months young South African galagos reach sexual maturity at which point males will emigrate. Females often stay with their mothers longer. Males do not directly participate in caring for the offspring.
Parental Investment: precocial ; pre-fertilization (Provisioning, Protecting: Female); pre-hatching/birth (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); pre-independence (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); post-independence association with parents
The Mohol bushbaby (Galago moholi) is a species of primate in the family Galagidae which is native to mesic woodlands of the southern Afrotropics. It is physically very similar to the Senegal bushbaby, and was formerly considered to be its southern race. The two species differ markedly in their biology however, and no hybrids have been recorded in captivity.[3]
The Mohol bushbaby is a medium size species with a head-and-body length of 15 cm (6 in) and a tail of 23 cm (9 in).The head is broad, with a short muzzle, orange eyes and diamond-shaped black eye-rings. The nose-stripe is whitish and the ears are large and grey. The dorsal surface of the body has a greyish-brown pelage, and the underparts are white, sometimes with a yellowish tinge. The flanks, inside of the limbs, hands and feet are yellowish. The fingers and toes have spatulate tips. The tail is darker than the rest of the fur but is not very bushy.[4]
It is found in Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.[5] Perhaps also present in Rwanda and Burundi.[2]
Breeding populations of this species are to be found in the suburbs of Johannesburg and Pretoria. Some of these were originally escaped or released pets, while others have migrated from warmer regions.[6]
The Mohol bushbaby feeds predominantly on insects and gum. The gum is an exudate from Acacia trees that oozes out of punctures made by insects. The most favoured gum-trees are sweet thorn (Acacia karroo) and umbrella thorn (Acacia tortilis). In the winter, the bushbaby moves between gum trees across the ground, but in the wet summer season, it usually travels arboreally, and consumes a much higher percentage of invertebrates. Feeding takes place soon after sunset, and then again throughout the night sporadically.[4]
Several authors recognize two races:[3][5]
The Mohol bushbaby (Galago moholi) is a species of primate in the family Galagidae which is native to mesic woodlands of the southern Afrotropics. It is physically very similar to the Senegal bushbaby, and was formerly considered to be its southern race. The two species differ markedly in their biology however, and no hybrids have been recorded in captivity.
