Monkey
Animals in the Bible
Vervet monkeys are smallish, long-tailed monkeys, which have gray fur with a greenish or bluish tinge. The skin on their eyelids and the genitals of the males is also greenish or bluish. Vervets are mainly vegetarian, eating fruit and young leaves with occasional insects and spiders. They spend most of their time in trees, but they also forage for grass seeds and fallen fruit on the ground. They live in family groups of up to about twenty individuals.
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In the Bible
The Hebrew and Greek words for it, and every verse where each is used
תֻּכִּי tuki · 2 verses
More about it
The translation “peacocks” (KJVRSV) is almost certainly incorrect. The rest of the cargo on board Solomon’s ships is from East Africa (the ancient ivory objects discovered by archeologists in the land to date are all made from African ivory) while peacocks originate from India and Myanmar which used to be known as Burma.
If qof refers to the baboon then it is likely that tuki refers to one of the smaller long-tailed monkeys of the guenon genus. The most common of these are the “green” and “blue” Vervet Monkeys Cercopithecus aethiops found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, Sudan, and Ethiopia. In ancient times these monkeys being easy to capture were exported as pets all over the Middle East and Europe.
Also in Apes
Sources
Plants and Trees in the Bible, Animals in the Bible and Human-made Things in the Bible © United Bible Societies, 2025 (adapted from Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible by Robert Koops, All Creatures Great and Small: Living Things in the Bible by Edward R. Hope, and The Works of Their Hands: Man-made Things in the Bible by Ray Pritz), CC BY-SA 4.0; adapted for eRhema