The Wild 5: Baboon - 2022 Proof Fine Silver 2oz High Relief $20 Coin - SLE

The fourth coin in the series features the world’s largest monkey – the Baboon. There are five species of baboons scattered across various habitats throughout the world, with species largely inhabiting areas of open woodland and savannah. They range in size and weight depending on species, with the largest reaching around 40kg in weight and 47cm in height. Baboons are noisy and sociable primates who tend to live in groups of around 50 individuals, although groups of up to 300 are not unknown. This particular primate has a range of different vocalisations for communicating with each other, with over 30 distinct vocalisations including grunts and screams which are used in addition to a plethora of non-vocal gestures such as shrugging and lip-smacking. They exhibit many behavioural traits that are considered to be ‘human-like' and have co-existed with human ancestors for many millions of years. The oldest baboon fossil is a skull found in South Africa that is thought to be two million years old.