By Obiabin Onukwugha
Galagos also known as bush babies are small nocturnal primates native to sub-Sahara Africa.
According to some accounts, the name “bush baby” comes from either the animal’s cries or its appearance.
It is said that the Ghanaian name aposor is given to them because of their firm grip on branches. Bush babies are the most successful strepsirrhine primates in Africa, according to the African Wildlife Foundation.
The animals are ace jumpers, using powerful legs and extremely long tails to spring great distances.
Along with their big eyes, which help them see in low light, bush babies are adapted to nocturnal living with their large, collapsible ears that rotate independently like radar dishes to zero in on prey in the dark.
The bush baby lives in small family groups of two to seven individuals. These groups may consist of an adult pair with or without young, two adult females plus infants or an adult female with young. Such groups spend the day sleeping together at the same site, but split up at night to forage.
Bush babies are nocturnal and spend most of their time high up in a canopy of trees. They’re omnivores that eat fruit, insects, tree gum, and sometimes small animals. Bush babies have a lifespan of over 16 years in the wild.
Called “Ikiri” in Igbo, and “Egbére” in Yoruba, bush babies communicate both by calling to each other and by marking their paths with their urine.
Bush babies demonstrate seasonal breeding. They reproduce twice a year; once at the beginning of rains in November, and once at the end of rains in February (Ballenger, 2001).
The male bush babies tend to gain weight and have an increased testes size during and just before the breeding seasons.
As insect predators, these animals probably help to control populations of their prey. They may also aid in dispersal of seeds through their frugivory.
Bush babies are prey to mongooses, genets, jackals, domestic dogs and cats, owls, and snakes, amongst others.
The bish baby and the mat
In Nigerian traditional folktale, Bush baby don’t sleep at night. It is said that it walks only at nights carrying a mat.
According to the folktale, this mat possesses wealth, but how do you get hold of it when the bush baby is always carrying it in its arms around.
The only way to get the mat is to wrestle with the creature and if you win you become the owner of the mat but there’s also a myth attached to wrestling this creature, which is if you wrestle you can’t win no matter how powerful you’re or the kind of weapon you use and there haven’t been any proof that someone has defeated this creature before.
The second option is to steal the mat away from this creature while it’s sleeping and that’s the only possible way because it has been said that people have stolen its mat before and they became rich overnight.
But another myth is attached to stealing its mat, which is after becoming rich overnight, this bush baby will always come back to you every night crying to you to give back its mat.