Western Red Colobus

Image: Wikipedia

Round my way, there's only one kind of racism that is still allowed. That's one group of people who you can openly despise and laugh at for no other reason than the lottery of birth. I'm not talking about the Welsh (or Scottish. Or French. Or German). I'm talking about the Ginger.

I, of course, have nothing against the carrot top. If you were born to look like a wax candle and have freely decided to retain the appearance of a walking fire hazard into adulthood, then that's fine by me. Just keep it to yourself and the Ginger bar. Or up a tree in West Africa.

Western Red Colobus monkeys come from West Africa. They spend their days stuffing their massive and complicated stomachs with the freshest leaves and fruit they can find. It's quite a bad diet, and more than a quarter of their body weight can be taken up by the contents of their guts. Just like ruminants, bacteria help them to digest their low-quality food and get as much nourishment as they can.

Western Red Colobus monkeys live in large groups of around 50 individuals. Females outnumber males in the mixed sex groups, while other males form bachelor groups. These monkeys appear very precisely and exactingly half Ginger, so whether the problem with these "other males" is that they are too Ginger or not Ginger enough, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure the problem is Ginger.

This might also be why they get hunted and eaten by chimpanzees. We're closely related to chimpanzees, so could this be a solution for our own Ginger problem? Perhaps not. In 1994, chimpanzees were infected with Ebola after eating Western Red Colobus monkeys. I don't know whether this was a direct result of Ginger, that's for you to decide, but it is certainly a compelling data point.

A Ginger casually dines on an assortment of body parts, yesterday.

Note: the opinions herein are those of 'society' and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author, who tends to take issue with most people regardless of hair colour, freckles or lack thereof.