As us (Tanzania, Zanzibar)

The vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus), which is very common in East Africa, develops complex adaptation strategies in human-affected environments. Capable of recognizing human routines , testing object/environment interactions, and exploiting new contexts (hotels, restaurants, gardens), it does not copy humans: it learns, experiments, and adjusts.

This phenomenon is part of what primatologists call behavioral plasticity —a capacity for individual or collective adjustment in the face of changing environments. Unlike species with transmissible social traditions (such as chimpanzees), vervet monkeys often learn on their own, through direct interaction. Their sometimes strangely “human” posture is therefore less a mimicry than an effect of shared context : that of a discreet but constant cohabitation with humans.

This type of behavior also raises questions about the porosity between the wild world and the constructed world , and about the way in which certain species become, in spite of themselves, silent observers of our ways of life .