Colobus Trust

Category: Blogroll | Date: Apr 14 2008 | By: admin

We are happy to announce the birth of one little white baby Colobus within Luciana’s Troop (one of our resident troops). Spotted by Luciana last week we all went down to see this small ball of fluff. Now on its fifth day, the newest member of the troop named Doa, looks healthy and is the centre of attention for the other 8 members of its family. Unfortunately though we have been unable to gather his/her gender.

When Colobus are born they have a coat of pure white. This white coat acts as a trigger for the other members of the troop to pay attention to the infant. Therefore by sharing parental responsibilities the mother has time to feed. This can be seen in the troop where the infant is now the centre of attention. In fact the affinity Colobus have for white is quite outstanding. They have even been known to come to the ground to pick up and care for white-coated kittens!

Dola, the adult female mother, is a great mother and has sired several offspring, the last being born almost exactly one year ago. You can see in the photo below that her last child, Dhani, and another member of the troop are showing interest their new sibling. Unfortunately, though she has stayed close to Dola have not been able to get a decent photo of his/her face. Doa will have to put up with a lot of this poking, pulling and being passed around over the next 3 months whilst he/she develops her full coat and learns to be independent. Its all character building though!

This is a great time of year for a Colobus to give birth as the soft shoots, fruits, leaves and flowers that abound during the rains will give it’s mother, Dola, the nutriment she needs to produce milk. So we have every hope for Doa’s future and are keeping a close eye on her/him.

With the next chance we have we intend to observe Doa and try and identify whether he or she is a he or a she!

We’ll keep you updated!

Regards,

Gwili