PAPER TITLE :DAILY ACTIVITY BUDGET OF MONA MONKEY (CERCOPITHECUS MONA SCHREBER) IN IBODI MONKEY FOREST, OSUN STATE, NIGERIA

FUTA JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE | VOLUME 10 NUMBER 2 2014

Paper Details

  • Author(s) : J. O. Okekedunu, *B.G. Ogunjemite, I.A. Adeyemo. and O.E. Olaniyi
  • Abstract:

The Mona monkey (Cercopithecus mona) are widely distributed in Nigeria having urban, peri-urban and wild
populations but with little or no knowledge about their activities in the country. Daily activity budget of the animal
was studied in Ibodi Monkey Forest, Osun State, Nigeria in February and June 2013 to determine the behavioural
categories and daily activity budget. Direct observations were undertaken for twenty days, 10 days each in both dry
and rainy seasons. T statistic was applied in the analyses of the dataset obtained at P<0.05. Eight activities namely;
locomotion, resting, feeding, playing, vocalization, grooming, agonistic and mating were observed in both dry and
rainy seasons. Mona monkey used most of their time for moving (32%), followed by feeding (25%), then resting
(23%) while playing and grooming had 11% and 6% respectively. During the dry season, the highest period was
also expended on locomotion (37%), followed by feeding (32%), then resting (16%) while playing, vocalization,
grooming and agonistic had 5%, 6%, 2% and 2% respectively, while none on mating. The t statistics of the daily
activity budget between rainy and dry seasons revealed that locomotion (t= - 0.12, P= 0.90), feeding (t= - 0.95, P=
0.37), and agonistic (t= 0.77, P= 0.45) were not significantly different (P>0.05), while resting (t= 8.16, P= 0.00),
playing (t= 18.22, P= 0.00), vocalization (t= -11.35, P= 0.00), grooming (t= 11.95, P= 0.00) and mating (t= 2.27, P=
0.04) were significantly different over seasons (P<0.05). A judicious use of this information will aid the
development of the site ecotourism purposes and ensure effective conservation and management of this species in
perpetuity at the site.
Keywords: Direct observation, locomotion, ecotourism, management