Baboons plan ahead for expeditions to find food, just as people work out how to scoop bargains.
They calculate which trees and bushes must be reached early in the day and which can wait, a study shows. The ability to imagine future delights is likely to derive from an ancestor common to humans and baboons 30 million years ago. The baboons know that if they defer a visit to a particular tree, the best pickings will have gone by the time they get there. So they head for the best fruit, only later collecting less-prized food.



Researchers, led by Dr Rahel Noser, of the University of St Andrews, established that baboons in Blouberg Nature Reserve, South Africa, knew where they were going and when, rather than taking food immediately they found it.

Professor Richard Byrne said: “It’s like planning for the January sales. If you stop for a coffee, the bargain on the third floor will have gone. Many researchers have suggested that this is beyond the mental capacity of non-human animals. These baboons were not only led by external stimuli but were able to imagine out-of-sight places and compare what is available.”

A south african Friend told me a story about a Baboon.

The baboon was raiding a farmers field by digging up marrows, it would dig up one marrow and place it under his arm, he would then move onto the next dig it up and then place it under his arm, obviously the previous marrow dropped to the floor, the baboon kept doing this for about an hour untill he reached the end with only one Marrow!!!

The clever dumb balence is restored! lol