Tabitha is Teddy's juvenile daughter. All her age-mates are males (Jack, Araali and Gerald) and perhaps as a result she's quite tomboyish and has a feisty streak. Unlike her mum Teddy, Tabitha isn't shy of us and may approach to shake branches or throw small sticks at us. Now aged 8, she's beginning to develop small pink swellings of her perineal skin, indicating she's entering adolescence. We expect the males in the group will start taking more notice of Tabitha next year!
0 Comments
Ally is Teddy's youngest infant. We didn't see much of him until quite recently, given Teddy's shy and protective nature. Sometimes when Ally's wobbly infant wanderings took him too close to us, a black hairy hand would shoot out from the undergrowth to pull him back safely out of sight. Aged three, he's now reached the age where Teddy doesn't feel the need to keep such a close eye on him. A curious chap, Ally clearly loves his new-found independence!
Teddy's a large, nervy adult female in her late thirties. She's the least social of all the Bulindi chimps and may choose to range alone with her offspring for days or even weeks at a time. She's also the shyest chimp in our presence, preferring to stay out of sight unless she's in the company of the big males. When we first got to know her in 2012 she wasn't especially skittish, but her confidence seemed to wane following the disappearance of daughter Tammie in 2013. Teddy is always accompanied by her 7-year old daughter Tabitha and 3-year old son Ally.
Jack is the elder of Maureen's two boys. Aged 9, he's now in the early throes of chimp adolescence - a time when young males push boundaries and generally annoy their elders (much as human teenagers do!). But Jack's exceptionally laid-back, a very cool chimp. It often seems he's as interested in his human observers as we are in him: he likes to approach to study us, all the better if done from the comfort of a nest made at head-height.
We expect Jack to develop much like his older brother Tom who earned the respect of his peers through calm leadership skills, rather than bluster. Sadly Tom died in 2015 after being injured by a steel trap. If Jack can survive in the dangerous human world at Bulindi, we expect him to increasingly exert his calm and astute influence on the group in the coming years. |
Archives
January 2019
Categories
All
|