Little YETI. The Great White Vervet Monkey of Bonamanzi (A Totally True Tale. Kinda.)

There are moments in the African bush that catch you completely off guard—like a lion roaring next to your tent at 2am, or discovering your biltong stash has been raided by a honey badger. But nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared Scott Lovemore and me for what we stumbled upon one fateful day at Bonamanzi Game Reserve.

We weren’t even monkeying around that day—we were tracking elephants. You know, the big grey things with trunks? Serious stuff. So we’re casually making our way toward a dam wall, sweating like mad, when Scott suddenly stops dead in his tracks and yells, “What is that?! A white leopard?!”

Now, you need to understand, when someone yells “leopard” in the bush, you don’t ignore them. You freeze. You look. You check your will. So I whip my head around and—no jokes—there it was. A white creature scampering across the road like a possessed marshmallow on Red Bull. I squinted. Definitely not leopard-ish. No spots, no stalky prowl. But a tail. And hands. And… attitude.

“It’s a vervet!” I shouted. “But… it’s WHITE!”

We stood there dumbfounded, mouths hanging open like two tourists who just saw their first giraffe riding a unicycle. Could it be some elaborate tribal punishment? Maybe it stole a mango and got dipped in whitewash as retribution? Was it a mystical bush spirit? A rogue paintball experiment gone wrong?

Nope. Just nature doing something weird again.

Without missing a beat, we charged toward the area like two wannabe wildlife paparazzi on a caffeine high. The bush was thick, the humidity was choking, and our camera equipment was somewhere between helpful and completely useless. But then—we saw them. A troop of normal vervet monkeys bouncing around in the undergrowth. And there, among them, our ghostly little friend.

We weren't hallucinating. This wasn’t a dream, or heatstroke, or the result of too much peri-peri the night before. This was real: a pure white vervet monkey. And the other monkeys? They didn’t care. They were just like, “Yup, that’s Barry. He’s just... different.”

A Bonamanzi maintenance manager rolled up in his bakkie and we practically rugby-tackled him with our news. “There’s a white monkey in the reserve!” we blurted out, wide-eyed and manic. He nodded like we’d just told him water was wet. “Ja, I know,” he said casually. “No one’s ever gotten a good photo though.”

Challenge accepted.

We split up—classic pincer move. I flanked left. Scott went right. The monkeys began their usual chaos, jumping and fleeing like little grey ninjas. Then, just as I was getting my hopes up, Scott yelled, “He just ran past me! TWO METRES AWAY!”

I sprinted in, just in time to catch the briefest, most magical glimpse: a big male, white as a wedding dress in a bleach factory, with cream-coloured skin and the faintest tip of black at the end of his tail. He was magnificent. A unicorn in monkey form. Like someone had Photoshopped a regular vervet but forgot to hit “undo.”

In that moment, we were giddy. Honestly, we were more excited than when we’ve seen lions or leopards. This wasn’t just rare. It was bonkers. It was ours. For 45 glorious seconds, we were the official White Monkey Guys™.

Now, before you go grabbing your binoculars and heading to Bonamanzi hoping to see him—slow down. He’s elusive. He’s camera-shy. And unless you’ve got the reflexes of a mongoose and a camera with the zoom of the Hubble telescope, good luck.

And please note: These images we’re sharing are AI-generated from a couple of poor-quality photos and foggy memories. They’re more of a “vibe” than a scientific rendering. Some artistic liberty may have been taken. Don’t sue us.

Still, the story is 100% true. Probably. Okay, 99.3% true. And yes, there really are white vervet monkeys out there. These rare creatures aren’t albino (usually), but leucistic—a genetic mutation that affects pigmentation, leaving them looking like furry little ghosts. Scientists say it’s super rare. We say it’s freakin’ amazing.

So there you have it: the Great White Vervet of Bonamanzi. A tale of elephants, ghost monkeys, and two grown men squealing in the bush like kids on Christmas.

And if you ever see him—tell Barry we say hi.

To visit this amazing game reserve go to https://bonamanzi.co.za/