A tiny, night-active primate with huge, round eyes, big bat-like ears, and a soft, woolly coat that ranges from silvery gray to brown. Those oversized eyes aren’t just cute—they’re perfect for seeing in the dark, helping it spot insects and branches as it moves through the trees at night. Its tail is longer than its body and works like a built-in balance pole, letting it leap between branches with incredible control. Even though an adult usually weighs only a few hundred grams, it can spring several meters in a single jump, bouncing through the trees like a supercharged rubber ball.
One of the coolest things about the Senegal bushbaby is its ears. Each ear is made of several flexible sections that can fold and unfold like tiny satellite dishes. At rest, it may fold them back, but when it’s listening for prey, those ears pop up and rotate to catch the faintest rustle of a grasshopper or moth. It also has a special “tooth comb”—a row of narrow, comb-like front teeth—that it uses to scrape sticky tree gum and groom its fur. Tree gum, along with insects and fruit, makes up a big part of its menu. In the rainy season, it snacks heavily on insects like grasshoppers; in the dry season, when bugs are scarce, it can survive almost entirely on gum oozing from acacia trees.
Social life for a Senegal bushbaby is a mix of “me time” and “cuddle time.” At night, they usually forage alone, zipping quietly through the branches, but at dawn they gather in small groups of two to five to sleep together in tree hollows, leaf nests, or dense foliage. Before they settle in, they call to each other using a set of squeaks, chirps, and “quack-like” sounds—bushbabies can have well over a dozen different calls for things like alarm, location, and reunion.
Distribution
Benin
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Central Af. Rep.
Chad
Côte D’ivoire
DR Congo (Kinshasa)
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea-Bissau
Guinea
Kenya
Mali
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Tanzania
Togo
UgandaAnything we've missed?
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Terrestrial / Aquatic
Altricial / Precocial
Polygamous / Monogamous
Dimorphic (size) / Monomorphic
Active: Diurnal / Nocturnal
Social behavior: Solitary / Pack / Herd
Diet: Carnivore / Herbivore / Omnivore / Piscivorous / Insectivore
Migratory: Yes / No
Domesticated: Yes / No
Dangerous: Yes / No
