patas monkeys

yesterday the primate keepers introduced two new females to the patas monkey group. the existing group consisted of one male and two females. admittedly i don't know al their names and just yesterday was reminded the male's which is leland. he is most noticeable so we wil start with his and i'll get the others and add them. leland is 24 and came to the sfzoo after a stint as a potential (was never used! yeah!) test monkey for the navy. there have been many other residents, so i don't know all the details. the two existing gals came about the same time and that was after leland. there has been no babies, so the two new gals were brought in. they are approx. 4 years old, not siblings, but possibly share the same grandparent. it was interesting to watch them in the inital mixing. the existing gals seems to right away be like "oh no you don't" while leland seemed to just be checking them out. having wandered by a bit after the first intro the keeper said that leland definietly put the new gals in their place and defended his old gals! they will figure out the heirarchy and it should all work itself out! ... will post photo soon!