Our grey-furred locals

If you’ve stayed at Sodwana Bay Lodge, chances are you’ve made the acquaintance of our inimitable vervet monkeys – who are convinced the place belongs to them.

Technically, of course, it doesn’t. But the vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) have been living in the woodland and coastal forests of KwaZulu-Natal for a very long time, and Sodwana’s lush vegetation, trees and reliable water make excellent vervet real estate.

They’re handsome animals, too. Their coats are generally grey or grizzled, while their faces, hands and feet are black. The pale colouring around their eyes makes their expressions remarkably easy to read. Adult males are larger than females, and have the rather unmistakable blue scrotum and red penis. Babies look quite different: they have dark coats and darling pinkish faces.

And then there’s that tail. Long, mobile and useful for balance, it’s part of the reason vervets are such accomplished movers. They’re equally comfortable on the ground and in trees, although they don’t spend their lives flinging themselves dramatically from branch to branch as cartoons would have us believe. They can also swim.

Vervets are diurnal. They live in stable, highly social troops, generally numbering around 15–20 animals, although larger groups may occur. Females normally remain in the group into which they were born, while young males typically leave when they reach maturity and may join another troop. Social rank matters, and the monkeys have an elaborate repertoire of postures, facial expressions and calls for negotiating it.

They’re also surprisingly sophisticated communicators with different alarm calls for different predators. A leopard warning sends them looking at the trees; an eagle alarm prompts them to scan the sky; and a snake alarm has them checking the ground. In other words, that chaotic racket coming from the trees may actually be a fairly detailed security briefing.

Food-wise, they’re opportunists with a strong preference for plant material: fruit, flowers, leaves, seeds, shoots and other vegetation. However, they’ll eat insects and occasionally small animals, eggs and other animal matter when the opportunity presents itself. Their cheek pouches allow them to gather food and carry it before eating it. And their colour vision helps them distinguish ripe from unripe fruit.

One of their more useful jobs is less obvious. By eating fruit and later depositing the seeds elsewhere, vervets help disperse plants and contribute to the regeneration of vegetation. Research in KwaZulu-Natal has even shown their importance in the recovery of previously disturbed dune-forest areas.

So, while they may occasionally display an unhealthy interest in anything edible left within reach, they’re not simply furry thieves with excellent climbing skills. They’re intelligent, social, highly adaptable wild animals who are an integral part of the Sodwana ecosystem.