bushbaby

Bushbaby entered English in the early 1800s from South African colonial usage. The compound is straightforward: bush (the wild, uncultivated land) + baby (an infant). European settlers in southern and eastern Africa heard piercing cries in the darkness that sounded exactly like a human baby wailing. When they finally found the source—a small, enormous-eyed primate clinging to a branch—they called it a bushbaby.

The animals are properly called galagos, from a Wolof word that may imitate their call. Galago was adopted into scientific Latin by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1796. But the common English name persisted because it was so evocative. A baby crying in the bush—the image was hard to forget, especially for settlers sleeping in unfamiliar territory.

Galagos have extraordinary adaptations. Their enormous eyes gather light in near-total darkness. They can rotate their heads almost 180 degrees. Their anklebones (the tarsus) are elongated, giving them the ability to leap up to 2.25 meters—remarkable for an animal that weighs as little as 60 grams. They are among the most successful primates in Africa, found in nearly every forest habitat south of the Sahara.

Some African cultures associate galagos with spirits or omens. The Zulu call them izilwane zasebusuku—'animals of the night.' The San people of southern Africa considered them messengers. The bush-baby's cry in darkness has produced folklore wherever the animal lives. The English name, for all its colonial simplicity, captured the same unease.