EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Explanation:   Sneaking in from the jungle after dark to grab some food scraps is this cat-like Thick-tailed Bushbaby.  We are in an open-air hut along the western shore of Lake Malawi, southern Africa, in Njobvu Safari Camp Lodge.  Lodge owners John and Sylvia have hand-raised "Tom" the bushbaby which now roams feral and only hesitantly comes in to feed.  This is an unusual example of how some wild animals can become commensals with humans, that is, can live with people to some degree.  

Thick-taileds have red eye shine and are strictly nocturnal.  They sleep by day in matriarchal groups of 2 to 6, hidden among dense vegetation in trees, in nests they make themselves.  At night, they forage alone in trees and on the ground, seeking fruits, gums of acacias, insects, and some reptiles and even birds.  

Thick-taileds are more often heard than seen, as they issue a loud, screaming call at night which has been described as "harrowing and unnerving" like that of a baby in distress [play sound - 117KB mp3].  

Bushbabies often sit motionless, then bound among branches only to suddenly freeze again.  This is a useful predator-escape mechanism that has evolved also in many frogs, in fishing spiders, and other animals, illustrating that similar behaviors that have adaptive value sometime appear in very dissimilar evolutionary lines.  This is the basis of convergent evolution.