Vincent Adami filmed this adorable baby baboon in May 2025 and sent it in to Latest Sightings. It was having a day out with its mom and the rest of the troop when they stopped to graze.
A baboon’s diet is hugely varied, as they are omnivores that will eat grass, seeds, and nuts, and will also eat meat when the opportunity arises.
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For this baby, it appeared to be having a hearty meal of wet mud, perfect to get the appetite going, before hurrying back to its mother for its ride from the waterside restaurant.
Little Baboon On A Little Beach
The troop had come to rest by the side of a waterhole, which was where Vincent first caught the baby baboon on camera. It was small enough to look a little unsteady as it moved around, indicating its youth.
It still had a dark coat, which also signals how young it really was, and although it was clearly still reliant on its mother, its attempts to eat solid foods suggest that it was close to a year old.
Although the size of the waterhole is unknown, the scale of the baby makes it appear as though it is standing on a muddy beach. Because it seemed to be so at ease, it is likely the water was shallow enough to determine an absence of predators.
A Delicious Mud Dinner
If it hadn’t been fully weaned at this point then it was undergoing the process, and potentially learning what is and isn’t food. Wet mud was clearly interesting enough to examine further.
Eating soil is not an uncommon part of many animal’s diets, and this baby is likely mimicking behavior it’s seen from the adults in the troop, or perhaps it’s just making a terrible mistake.
Soils rich in certain minerals can have nutritious benefits to animals, and eating them can provide them with important vitamins which are otherwise harder to source in the wild. Omnivorous animals like baboons might be more likely to engage in this behavior than others.
Time To Get Back To Mom
Eventually, the muddy dinnertime had to come to an end, and it was time to play instead. It wasn’t until the baby baboon made it back to its mom that the size difference between it and an adult really became apparent.
Baboons typically only give birth to one infant at a time, but if this one had any friends at a similar age, then they were keeping themselves to themselves, so this mischievous baby had to try and play with mom.
It spent a little bit of time rolling around on the ground, attacking her wrists, but she didn’t seem to be in the mood for it. It’s the female baboons that raise their young with little input from the males, so this was the infant’s best chance for a game.
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Hitching A Ride
Instead of joining in with the game, the baboon mother obviously decided it was time to move, and the baby had to hitch a ride. For a short second, it seemed close to being left behind.
A quick leap saved the day, however, as it clung to its mother’s back legs, then shifted to hang from her stomach as she walked to dangling from her stomach as she walked. Now that’s a quick and easy taxi service.