Summary

1. Gelada are confined to an area of highlands lying above 1700 m in the central Ethiopian plateau.

2. Estimates suggest that in the mid-1970s, the total population was in the order of half a million animals. Although in no immediate danger of extinction, the species has recently been added to the IUGN Red Data Book because of its uniqueness and limited distribution.

3. Although protected under both Ethiopian law and the international CITES convention, gelada are found in only one conservation area (Simen Mountains National Park).

Introduction

Although only officially collected and described in the 1830s by the explorer-naturalist Ernst Riippell, the gelada has probably been familiar to the inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean for well over 2000 years. Jolly & Ucko (1969) have documented its occurrence in travelling menageries in Medieval times in Europe, where it was generally known by its early Greek name sphingion (‘sphinx monkey’). While these authors dismiss the possibility that the gelada provided the original model for the better known Great Sphinx of Giza (the Egyptian Sphinx), it is likely that its presence in the nearby highlands of Ethiopia was known to the ancient Egyptians. Indeed, the Greek geographer Agatharcides who travelled extensively in Egypt and the Indian Ocean littoral during the early part of the second century BC gives a very clear description of the gelada (or sphinx, as he calls it) and notes that animals were regularly sent from Ethiopia to the Egyptian port of Alexandria.