📷 Vervet Monkey

I met this cute, smart but a little bit impudent monkey in South Africa. Imagine a situation: we lived in a guest house with a patio in a small town. Everything was nice, comfortable, civilized ... however, upon arrival we were warned: if you go for a walk, close all the windows. Here, they say, monkeys live. They will come, climb, drag or break something, or they will devour the products. We were a little surprised, but almost everyone obeyed - but as it always happened, someone in one of the rooms still forgot to close the window. A couple of hours later we returned in the evening - but no one came to visit.

But in the morning, these tailed guests still appeared in the courtyard - just in time for our breakfast. Three monkeys, if my memory serves me well. Apparently, they had already learned the local meal schedule for a long time :) They jumped in the trees near us, and then they started to jump on the tables, and our hosts actively chased them away. It seems that they still managed to steal some bread :) Well, in gratitude, one of them posed for me a little on a tree, waiting for me to run into the room for the camera (or rather, just not in a hurry to leave the tables with food) :)

This is how my acquaintance with these pretty guys happened, and I did not mind to give them a couple of pieces of bread :)

Vervet monkeys are one of the species of the genus Chlorocebus green monkeys, which is sometimes called entirely "vervet monkey" or "green monkey", although these are separate species among it. Vervets live in the eastern and southern parts of the African continent. Quite social animals, willingly come into contact with humans and often get along with him. They feed mainly on plant foods - fruits, leaves and seeds of plants, they also eat bird eggs and insects. And where a human lives, they are ready to eat bread and other grain crops. They do not disdain begging and theft, while they are very curious, and the thing they are interested in will be taken apart.

So it’s good that they didn’t come to visit us in the evening, otherwise someone with a window ajar could have missed a lot :)