Baboons are active during the day. Their limbs are well adapted to running fast on all fours in a rocking horse gallop. They walk in an awkward swaggering manner. Although baboons spend most of their time foraging on the ground, they all retire in trees or high up on steep-sided cliffs to sleep, safe from predators like the leopard. So they can also climb well.

In fact, the availability of safe sleeping sites is the limiting factor to troop size. Because their food is so sparsely distributed, baboons often travel long distances, about 6-20 km a day on a home range of up to 60 sq km. Because they share their sleeping site and often their foraging home ground too, baboons are not territorial, although subgroups avoid each other as they forage.