Ngurdoto Gate is situated on the edge of Ngurdoto Forest and is a good place to stop and take a first view of the forest. As you begin to look around you will notice that there are different types of vegetation growing at three separate levels. These are the tall trees, the intermediate shrubs and the grasses and flowering plants at the lower level.
Five common trees are illustrated on the previous page. As you drive through the forest look at the trees' shapes, leaves and bark colors to help tell them apart. Unfortunately very few of the trees have common names but these are used in the guide book wherever possible. The wild mango has long lush green leaves which are clustered and the fruits can usually be seen growing. The distinctive bark of Bersama abyssinnica makes it easy to identify. This tree has brown and white reticulated streaks on pale brown bark. Rauvolfia caffra has smooth grey bark, with some pale patterning and very distinctive leaves. These trees can grow to 25 meters (82 feet) in wet forests. The Afican olive has a fairly straight trunk, steeply ascending branches up to a dense crown. The bark is grey-white and smooth in contrast to Diospyros abyssinica which is also a straight slender tree but with a very dark bark. An easy tree to recognize is Ficus thonningi, a wild fig, with its curious aerial roots and smooth grey bark.
One of the most common animals of the forest is the Olive baboon. A baboon troop consists of between 30 and 100 individuals, and is made up of females and their young, adolescent animals of both sexes and a number of adult males. At adolescence, males leave the troop into which they were born and "transfer" into another troop.
Males can be distinguished from females by their larger size, mane and canines. At first, females carry their young on their stomachs, but after about a month the young infant rides jockey style on the mother's back near the tail. Female baboons form dominance hierarchies and high ranking females have greater access to food. The hierarchies of the males are not so clear-cut and depend on factors such as fighting ability and age. When in estrus females develop a large pink swelling on their rears, which signals to the males their receptivity.
Much of their diet consists of grass, roots, fruit and insects but they can, and do, hunt and kill small antelopes. A single baboon troop can range in an area as large as 10 square kilometers (3.87 square miles), but the ranges in Arusha are likely to be much smaller.
Rangers warn visitors not to feed the baboons because they can bite and inflict very serious wounds.
Another primate which can frequently be heard or seen in the high forest canopy is the black and white colobus monkey. These handsome monkeys are easily recognized by their long flowing hair which forms a white mantle around the body and by their bushy white tails. Their calls are a guttural roar which is repeated rapidly in chorus. Black and white colobus are the most arboreal of all African monkeys and rarely descend from the trees to the ground. They live within a well defined home range within the forest. Colobus monkeys feed on the leaves and travel through the canopy by jumping from tree to tree and sometimes swinging by their arms. It is a fantastic sight to watch the aerobatics of a troop as they move.
Black and white colobus live in family troops with an adult male and several females. Young males leave end either form new troops or are solitary. When born the young are white but change to adult coloration during their first three months.
In the past the Chagga people of Kilimanjaro used colobus fur to make traditional tribal headdresses and in some areas colobus numbers were greatly reduced. Today colobus living outside the Park are much threatened by destruction of their forest habitat.
Another conspicuous forest species is the silvery-cheeked hornbill This large bird with its casqued bill, flies with creaking wing beats and often sits at the top of trees making a raucous noise. It is not known what purpose the casque serves but it probably helps to amplify the sound of the bird's cries. Like most species of hornbill, the female is walled into her nest while she incubates the eggs. The nest entrance is sealed with mud and the male feeds the female through a small hole. Hornbills eat fruit and their serrated upper mandible helps them to forage efficiently.
In contrast to the noisy hornbill the red duiker is a shy, quiet, inconspicuous animal which you may be lucky enough to see. Duikers are small antelopes that move easily through dense vegetation, carrying their head low, along regular runs. When disturbed they plunge into thick cover. This latter action gives the animal its name duiker comes from the Dutch "diver". Red duikers are rufous-chestnut in color, with somewhat pale underparts and both sexes have horns.
They are primarily browsers, feeding on leaves, young shoots, bark and seeds and may even eat the fruits of trees. Although usually solitary or in pairs, red duikers may occasionally gather in groups in woodland clearings when attracted there by food. Although mostly nocturnal red duikers are sometimes seen in the day. However the blue and bush duikers also found in the Park are rarely seen.
from Away.com
