SpiderMonkeyTales

Live Feeds of Primates!

2012-01-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of live feeds of primates at zoos, from San Diego to the UK! Thus far, I don't think anyone has a spider monkey cam :( If you discover any ape/monkey cams that I have missed, please let me know!

Callicam:
marmosets at the Wisconsin National Primate Center

Orang Cam:
orangutans at the Durrell Wildlife Trust in the UK

Orang Cam:
orangutans at the National Zoo in DC

Ape Cam:
orangutans and siamangs at the San Diego Zoo

Monkey Cam:
Japanese macaques at the Blank Park Zoo in Iowa

GLT Cam:
Golden Lion Tamarins at the National Zoo in DC

And if you are looking for video clips, I highly recommend that you check out ARKive or National Geographic's monkey videos and ape videos!

Pandas are much harder to study than monkeys

2011-12-08T15:49:00.001-08:00

"Anybody who has experienced our work knows it is not that glamorous. It is sometimes boring and lonely," Panda researcher Yang Yi

The LA Times has an interesting article on censusing pandas, and what struck me is that while the challenges and frustrations of panda research are similar to my own, the rewards are much fewer and far between.

Yi's statement would apply to most fieldwork. It definitely applied to some parts of mine. However, the work of censusing and studying pandas makes my research look easy, and far more rewarding. When censusing unhabituated animals, you have to look for traces, such as feces, prints, scratches, or nests, depending on the type of animal you are studying. For example, if you are censusing great apes, you look for nests. If you are censusing panda droppings, you look for panda feces. And while fecals are rewarding as both data points and assurances that the pandas are still there, they are not as rewarding as seeing the animal itself. And pandas sightings are rare. I've heard that dedicated panda biologists consider it a highlight to see one in the wild just a few times in their career. Dai Bo, a wildlife biologist quoted in the LA Times articles, has worked in the mountainous Sichuan province for 20 years without seeing a single panda.

This really reminds me how lucky I am to study animals that I could regularly observe, and increases my respect and appreciation for everyone who studies animals who are far more cryptic. I have learned from past field experiences that while I can put up with much of the loneliness, tedium, and frustrations of fieldwork, I need to regularly see the animals I am studying to stay motivated. And while I love the forest, and am fascinated by the research questions I am exploring, for me, the main reward is the joy of getting to know individual personalities, watching infants and juveniles grow, and peering into the daily lives and dramas of the animals I study. While I definitely have stretches in which I can't find the monkeys, or am constantly losing the monkeys as I get stuck in the swamp, I have the lucky moments in which I get to watch and enjoy the monkeys. And every once in a while, I get the opportunity to see other, more elusive animals, such as tayra, sloth, tamandua, jaguarundi, agouti, and tapir.

There are many times that I've wished I had chosen to study terrestrial, easy-to-see primates, such as baboons or macaques. But thinking about the panda census makes me realize how lucky I am to see my spider monkeys as often as I did.

However, for those of us sitting at our computers, it's much easier to see pandas, because the San Diego Zoo, the National Zoo, and Zoo Atlanta all have panda cams. Thus far, I have yet to find a spider monkey cam!

Field Notes on Science and Nature

2011-12-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

I absolutely loved most of this book, and wish I had read it before doing my dissertation fieldwork. I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone going off to do fieldwork in the near or distant future, because it makes you think a lot about how you want to organize your data collection, as well as methods for identifying individuals, recording anecdotal information, and preparing for analysis and writing. Besides that, it also shows excerpts from the various researchers own field notes. My favorite chapter was “The Pleasure of Observing” by George Schaller, but I highly recommend at least skimming through all the chapters to see if there’s helpful or relevant information to you. The book contains chapters written by different field researchers in a variety of fields, from entomology to paleontology to biosocial anthropology, and covers a variety of different types of field recording systems… from the old-fashioned 19th century naturalists field journals to the standardized Grinnell system to utilizing sketching in field notes. While many of the authors feel strongly that there is something essential to having an old-fashioned, paper-and-pencil field notebook and lament replacing them with computers and hand-held recording devices, one author, Piotr Nasrecki, has a chapter entitled “Note-taking for Pencilophobes,” describes his experience developing an online database manager to create an entirely digital version of a field notebook.

Reading this has made me reflect a lot on how I record data, and what I do, (and don’t do) with my field notebooks. Back when I was in Cameroon, I kept a field journal that was similar to what I imagined old-fashioned naturalists’ field notebooks were like—a mix of journaling, recording field stories and experiences, and sketching butterflies that I’ve seen. But our data was recorded on separate checksheets, so this field journal was completely separate from data collection. In doing my masters research, I recorded data in checksheets in rite-in-rain notebooks, and then recopied them into another notebook, and then entered them into Excel spreadsheets. Notes and anecdotes were either noted in the notes section of my focal spreadsheets, or written in a Word field I kept for anecdotes and more detailed notes and descriptions. I kept the field notebooks in plastic baggies so that I could refer to them in the future, but that’s meant that they just sat festering in a moldy state in Ziplocs for quite a long time--if you do this, make sure you put some silica in with your notebooks, or they will get DISGUSTING!

For my dissertation data collection, I’ve been given conflicting advice. One of the reviewers of my NSF DDIG proposal seemed shocked that I would collect data in field notebooks (he/she said it was because paper can be eaten by termites, but I suspect he/she just thought it was a completely outdated practice), and advocated using a hand-held digital recorder. However, I think that in a rainforest environment, using technology in the field increases the risks of losing data—there’s always a risk of electronics malfunctioning in the humid environment, and if you drop it in a stream or swamp, there goes expensive equipment AND your data. But since I have dropped my field notebooks in swamps on multiple occasions, I know that you can just wipe the mud off the pages and still be able to see your data and notes. My advisor also did not like the idea of collecting data in field notebooks, and instead though that I should print out checksheets on rite-in-the-rain paper. However, this would require periodically printing in the field, which I didn’t know if it would be a possibility (the field station does now have both electricity and a printer, but the printer was not there at the beginning of my fieldwork, and until we were hooked up to the electrical grid about 10-11 months into my fieldwork, we only had generator power for a few hours in the evening). So instead I decided to stick with checksheets in my field notebook. Initially during my masters research I would spend a lot of time meticulously organizing neat checksheets in my notebooks, this was replaced by a messier, less time consuming version of the checksheet system that worked for me. I continued to stick with this method during my dissertation, because I already had my own system and shorthand down. Recordings for fecal collections also went down into my field notebook, and if there was something of interest I’d usually jot down very quick, abbreviated notes, and then expand on that in the evening when I was entering data.

During my dissertation research I also skipped the step of copying into a separate notebook, and instead went straight into entering data into my excel files. While I like having a separate written record, it’s very time-consuming, and I preferred being able to enter my data more quickly and I would back up my records on an external hard drive. Entering in data the evening it was collected gave me a chance to check over data, and expand on any observations that were only briefly noted in my notebooks. Notes on individual identification and any expanded notes or anecdotes went into word documents.

I also am very diligent about keeping my computer and hard drive safe from the humidity. While I do know of one person’s computer that molded to death at the field station, I suspect it was because she was not taking good care of it. To protect computers and other electronics from constant humidity, you need to run them regularly—the heat generated helps keep them dry. Since I used my computer nearly every evening, it was always in regular use. When not in use, its best to store them in some sort of dry box or bag. There are dry boxes/closets at the field station, but the heat from the lamps obviously only works when there was electricity. Instead, for both my masters and dissertation fieldwork, I kept a large plastic storage container with silica as my drybox, and it seems to have worked out quite well. The silica was wrapped in old socks, which are porous enough to allow the silica to absorb moisture while preventing silica beads from getting in everything.

Interspecific Affiliation

2011-11-14T09:37:00.000-08:00

Raymond has recently posted on interspecific grooming, and I have so much to say about this topic that I have to write about it as well—however, I look at interspecific grooming as part of the range of interspecific interactions that can occur. We’re usually not surprised when individuals of different species have agonistic interactions. However, sometimes we are surprised when affiliative interactions occur. This really shouldn’t surprise us—after all, many of us participate in interspecific interactions everyday (I probably spend more time interacting with my cats and dog right now than I spend with other humans).

Aside from my daily interactions with my best feline and canine friends (as well as observing their interactions—one of our cats does groom the dog as well), I’ve seen various types of interspecific interaction, both in captivity and in the wild.

At the Omaha Zoo, I watched a juvenile spider monkey both groom and harass the tapir with which she shared her exhibit. She groomed him, jumped on him, and eventually, in an attempt to get a reaction, reached back and grabbed his nether regions. The tapir ignored her previous actions, but did raise his head and look at her in response to that transgression. When she got a reaction, the spider monkey made a gleeful play face, and I suspect that this may have been a regular occurrence (unfortunately, I was only visiting for one day, but I would have loved to observe there more often to see if that was a regular occurrence).

At Brookfield Zoo, the spider monkeys share their exhibit with capuchins, an anteater, and a tapir. However, they seemed to largely ignore the anteater and the tapir, and would routinely harass the capuchins or redirect aggression toward them.

At Cayo Santiago, the island was teeming with both rhesus monkeys and iguanas. Most of the time, the two species ignored each other, but occasionally interactions occurred. Though they were rare, it indicated that the rhesus monkeys did see the iguanas as social actors. When the iguanas were very active during their mating season, male macaques would sometimes get irritated and chase them away. Once, I sat down on a log, and inadvertently scared an iguana hidden below it. Startled, he immediately ran out, and darted straight into my focal animal. The poor monkey was startled as well, and he indignantly threatened the iguana. However, the funniest macaque-iguana interaction is when a female macaque went up to an iguana and started grooming it. I think a friend of mine may have actually caught that interaction on tape—I would love to see it again.

During my masters research at El Zota in Costa Rica, I observed quite a bit of capuchin-spider monkey interaction. One of my focal animals, Tristan, spent a whopping 78% of his play time with capuchins! Furthermore, my male juveniles received agonism only from capuchins. In Tristan’s case, it may have been because Tristan would indiscriminately approach capuchins of all ages, and adult males capuchins responded agonistically to his solicitations. Another individual, Freddie, was far more afraid of capuchins, and was chased out of a Ficus tree several times by capuchins. I also observed one of my female focal subjects, Iris, attempting to groom a male howler—however, he seemed rather surprised by her attempts, and moved over to rest a meter away from her.

During my dissertation, I observed a few more interspecific interactions. During my pilot project during the summer of 2008, we observed an adult male howler playing with a juvenile male spider monkey, as well as an adult female spider playing with an adult female howler. During the main portion of my dissertation fieldwork, adult female focal Agata fought with, and then was chased by an adult male male. Subadult female Anne groomed an adult male howler for less than a minute before he retreated. Another time, Anne solicited play from an adult female—they played for less than a minute. Juvenile male Judah played with an adult male howler for quite some time—I unfortunately was not able to note the duration of their play encounter, because I was doing focals on Judah’s mother, Jlo, at the time. I also observed adult female Strawberry chased an adult female howler—I wrote in my notes that it was a “slow chase.”

I have also heard reports that someone observed spider monkey-capuchin grooming interactions--I'm very envious, because in all the time I've spent with those spiders, I have not seen it! I've heard there is photographic evidence, but I have yet to see the picture. This summer, an instructor with a primate class also observed a subadult male capuchin mounting a subadult male spider--and got a picture of it (I did see that photo!).

Why do these interspecific interactions occur? Most agonistic encounters can usually be understood in the context of feeding competition. However, interspecific affiliation, particularly grooming and play, are a bit more difficult to understand. I think it indicates that many primate species recognize other primate species, as well as other animals, as social actors. Play among different primate species is more commonly observed, and may just be a consequence of playful juveniles looking to play with whoever will play with them, regardless of species. This might be especially valuable for juvenile spider monkeys—small subgroups can limit their opportunities to play with conspecifics, and adults may be busy feeding, resting, or grooming with other adults. However, play among adults of different species, and interspecific grooming, is another issue. Why would adults invest time in affiliating with another species, when they could be investing in relationships with conspecifics? In species that form interspecific associations, it makes sense to invest in relationships with the other species. For other species, its less clear.
How can we study this phenomenon? Unfortunately, because such interactions tend to be infrequent, we usually just collect anecdotes as we collect data for another project. However, perhaps collaborative effort on examining collections of observations might yield some interesting insights. Also, there are a number of zoos that house multiple species together, and these exhibits probably are the best place to specifically exam these questions. However, just because animals are housed together does not mean that they will affiliate together—the spiders and capuchins at Brookfield Zoo are a good example of that. It may also be valuable to study interspecific affliliation among species that frequently form interspecific associations, as the frequency of interactions would likely be more common.

Have you observed any interesting interspecific interactions, or have any ideas or insights into why it occurs? Please share! And I you have observed interspecific grooming, please let Raymond know as well!

Manuscript Rejection Blues

2011-10-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

I am slowly trying to settle into a dissertation working/writing routine, but having some problems. First, what to do, and what to make myself do? I have a list of to-do tasks, some to do with cleaning up and sorting data for analysis, some of it to do with writing/outlining parts of my dissertation. But I feel like I jump around, do a little of this, a little of that, but mostly… a lot of procrastinating.

BUT, one thing that is really getting in the way of my motivation is my much-rejected manuscript based on my masters research. I finished my thesis in 2007, presented data from it in posters and presentations and conferences from 2006-2008, and since around 2007, have been trying to get it published. I have submitted it, thus far, too four journals. Two rejected it outright. One said that the major problems were that the sample size was too small (four males, four females), the amount of data was too low (approximately 70-ish focal hours), and that the age range of the focal animals was too large (juveniles range from about 15-50 months, and I categorize them in one of three age categories). The second said that the major problem was the length of the time of the study (about 14 weeks). Despite these drawbacks, after rejecting my manuscript, I later came across a recent article in the first journal on similar topics in captive rhesus macaques—it was based on one week (!) of data collection, and 44 observation hours! GRRRRRRR!!!!! How did THEY get that accepted? I will concede that they had a much large number of males and females, they were probably approximately the same age or at least a smaller age range, and that they recorded and analyzed data based on bouts of social interactions (ie, so their observation hours are presumably ALL social behavior, whereas mine include other activities). Nonetheless, it is frustrating—especially considering that my number of focal animals and the age ranges are a) completely of my control, and b) limited because of the life history, community size, and ranging size of spider monkeys—with an interbirth interval of three years, there are only so many juvenile spider monkeys you can find in one place!

The third journal rejected it, but did say that it would accept resubmission if I could address all the reviewers critiques—so I revised and resubmitted it. I think it made the manuscript much stronger, and although the number of focal individuals is small (not much I can really do about that!), I noted that the number of focal hours per individual is comparable to other similar studies on juvenile primates, and cited a couple of those studies. Every other critique was addressed. But, nonetheless, despite my resubmission, they rejected it the second time, because although I did address all those critiques, the sample size was still the same!

And now, I’m in the same boat with journal #4. Their major issue is not the sample size, but hours of data per individual. While the reviewers acknowledge that it is comparable to the other studies, they note that those studies were on juveniles living in cohesive groups, and that for juveniles in a fission-fusion society, they think that amount of data is inadequate. Which is so annoying, because unlike at least one of those other studies, I had individual recognized focal animals—if I didn’t bother recognizing them, obviously I could have had more data, but that would, in my opinion, be a bigger problem! BUT, if I can adequately argue that it is sufficient, and address a number of other minor points, then they might consider my resubmission. But is it worth doing another round of painstaking revisions, if in the end, it’s going to rejected for again for the factors that I can’t change? It’s just frustrating, because obviously, I’ve put a lot of work into it, and part of the reason I chose that particular topic was BECAUSE there was so little published on the topic. But now I realize that maybe I should have picked animals with cohesive groups and large numbers. Perhaps I should have studies some captive macaques.
This is my frustration, and it’s definitely killing my motivation and enthusiasm for working on my dissertation. While I definitely have more individuals, and more data, for my dissertation project, my total focal hours and hours per individual are a bit lower than I had wanted. I’m hoping that with the ecological and endocrinological data to round it out, it won’t be a problem, but it worries me. What if I run into the same problem trying to publish manuscripts from my dissertation? If I can’t get it published, then I probably have little chance of getting a job, and thus many years of my life have basically been wasted. I know I’m overreacting, but when I’m thinking about that, it makes it really hard to focus on actually trying to work on the stupid dissertation.

Lorelai Learns to Leap

2011-10-03T12:43:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about spending a long time in the field is the chance to see juveniles grow up. Mostly, this applies to my spider monkeys; however, I also had the opportunity to watch a family of whistling ducks grow from little hatchlings to adults. When you’re seeing your study animals regularly, sometimes it’s hard to notice they’re growing, until one day it just hits you that someone suddenly looks so much bigger.

Every so often, though, you get the opportunity to see, in a single day, an event that marks that development. Sometimes it’s a rejected weaning attempt, or an infant tentatively taking a few steps after its mother. In this case, juvenile female Lorelai, learned to take a big flying from one treat to the next, instead of relying on her mother to bridge for her.

When young juveniles learn to travel independently of their mothers, they are quite a bit slower and smaller than their mothers, and have trouble negotiating some of the larger tree gaps that spider monkeys regularly cross. To help them, mothers, as well as other adults, will use their body to form a bridge from one tree to the next. As they grow older, they learn to negotiate those gaps themselves; in some cases, juveniles will to ignore the convenient bridge that their mother provided, and go around a different route to make the crossing themselves. However, in this particular case, the reverse happened.

On the grounds of our field station, there were a several wonderful fruiting trees that spider monkeys were sure to use. When those trees were fruiting, we’d get a break from chasing monkeys through forest and swamps, and instead got to watch monkeys right from the station. One of them, a tall scrawny Spondias tree, was a daily favorite for a while last fall, and was nicely located in a position where we could watch it from the gazebo (this was fieldwork at its easiest and most ideal).

One of the most frequent visitors to that tree was adult female Leila (my favorite, and most wonderful, focal subject), and her juvenile daughter Lorelai. Sometimes they would travel there by themselves, other times, with the company of other monkeys (they frequently spent time with another mother-offspring dyad, Jlo and Judah). On this particular day, Leila and Lorelai were by themselves, and after feeding in the Spondias, they continued to travel a route they frequently used. However, at a point that Leila normally would bridge for Lorelai, Leila did not. Instead, when Lorelai traveled to the end of the branch, and then looked expectantly back at Leila, Leila just sat down. And then she waited. Lorelai looked back at her, and then eventually decided to look forward at gap and judge it for herself. She held onto her branch, leaning toward the gap, but then pulled back. Again, she looked to Leila, and Leila stayed sitting. Lorelai then climbed to a different branch, and again proceeding to cautiously lean out, checking the gap. She hesitated for a while, but then she pulled herself into position, and just took one great flying leap, and safely landed on the branches of the next tree (it’s usually fairly easy for spider monkeys to safely land after those leaps, because they essentially have five limbs that can grab onto branches).

And then as soon as she made it, Leila got up, followed her into that tree, and then continued travelling forward. After that, I watched Lorelai go on to confidently cross many large gaps on her own.

Return from Narnia

2011-08-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

I am now back from Costa Rica!

My field assistants and I sometimes referred to our field site as Narnia, because when you're there, it seems worlds apart, and time seems to flow differently there. After a few days there, you feel like you've been there an eternity, and you start to wonder if your real life really existed, or if you just dreamed it. But then somehow, though the time seems to be slow and endless there, sometimes time flies by, surprisingly enough, and though I never though it would end, here I am, back in the US.

Anyway, I must apologize for being horrible at updating my blog. I intended to update regularly, but I found that when you have limited access to internet, you finally are online, you spend your time wading through an overwhelming full inbox, catch up with friends when you can, and have no time or motivation for anything else. So even though I've had stories I've wanted to share, I have yet to actually get around to writing them... but hopefully now I will.

By the end of my fieldwork, I was pretty sick and frustrated with it. Studying spider monkeys and collecting their fecal samples is difficult, and they gave me quite a challenge. At various time this year, I've wished that I'd picked something a bit easier to do--such as studying foraging behavior and diet instead of social behavior and endocrinology. Or howler monkeys instead of spiders. Or terrestrial monkeys instead of arboreal monkeys. Or better yet, the free-ranging macaques of Cayo, or even better, captive animals. At other times, I've wished that instead of doing a PhD, I'd gone to vet school, so I would not have to spend over a year of life away from my boyfriend, pets, and the comforts of home to chase after monkeys, fall in swamps, collect poo splattered all over vegetation, and get eaten daily by clouds of mosquitoes.

But luckily, my very last day at the station, I got a little reminder of why I chose fieldwork, and why, sometimes I love it. I went out in the forest in the morning of my last day, but didn't find any monkeys. So I spent the rest of the day finishing up packing, and by late afternoon, I had most of my stuff packed away. And while I was on the porch reading at about 5:30 in the afternoon, I heard some whinnies. So I went to investigate, and there was my favorite monkey, Leila, with her daughter Lorelai, and another female, Mindy. And my first thought was, oh no! Everything is packed away! So instead of doing what I always do (do focals and hope for poo to collect), I just spent about a half hour watching them go about their foraging, and enjoying my last moments with them. And it was such a wonderful time, they came low enough for me to observe them easily without binoculars, and I got to see Lorelai take some big flying leaps (this was impressive because in the fall I watched her work up the nerve to attempt them on her own, and I can't believe how much I've gotten to see her grow up in the past year), and I was able to really enjoy them. When you're busy stressing about getting data, sometimes its harder to appreciate the monkeys, and I'm glad that the those females came by on the last day to remind me how much I love them.

Lagoon wildlife

2011-01-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

One of my absolute favorite things about El Zota is the lagoon. It's small, with marshy grasses in the middle, and a gazebo that serves as a great wildlife observation post. It provides views of popular spider monkey feeding trees, so when one of them is fruiting, the gazebo usually is one of the best vantage points. But even when monkeys aren't around, there is plenty of other wildlife to see. . .

This is "Bunny," one of the resident caiman

Can you spot the camouflaged basilisk?

A family of whistling ducklings--only four made it into juvenility and adulthood.

Did you know that jacanas are polyandrous?

The ducklings with their attentive parents

Capuchins in the Backyard

2010-12-31T15:56:00.000-08:00

All of these pictures are from the backyard, right behind my window.

Muttonchop Mindy

2010-12-31T15:53:00.000-08:00

a cute moment...

2010-12-31T15:49:00.000-08:00

Hi all, sorry I have been so horrible at updating the blog! I never seem to have enough time at internet cafes, and I've been rather busy during my holiday break back in the US! But here's a post I wrote some time ago...

Today, I only spent twenty minutes watching the monkeys, but it was definitely a good twenty minutes. The first focal was like most others—monkeys happily pigging out on Spondias. However, the next focal was one of the cutest 10 minutes I’ve ever watched in the field. Leila and Jlo curled up in the crook of a tree, each of them reclining in an opposite direction on the branches. Meanwhile, hanging down in between/on top of them were Judah and Lorelai, dangling from their tails and wrestling. Jlo groomed Lorelai, then attempted to Judah, who was too busy playing to be bothered with a quick grooming session. Judah and Lorelai scampered off to continue playing a few meters away, and Jlo resumed grooming Leila. And then, Jlo shifted positions, so that she was lying with her head on Leila’s belly, and Leila groomed her. And then, at the end of the focal, they were off traveling again, so quickly after their short social break.

This all occurred just in the backyard, and I so wish I’d had my camera to take a picture of them. I’m not sure I could have gotten a good picture (I pretty much could only see them standing in one spot, crouching slightly, and needed my binoculars to see grooming movements), but it was so adorable, seeing the two females curled up so cozily, with the kids dangling between them. And the sight of Jlo curled up with her head on Leila’s belly was just priceless. It seems to me as though the spiders don’t have much time to engage in socializing (it always seems to be a quick social interaction here or there in between resting or feeding or traveling), but when they do, it’s clear that they do have some strong bonds. I’m really hoping that by the end of the year, I have enough of these tiny moments recorded. It seems so obvious to me that some of the females here have very tight friendships, but its really tough to get enough data that can really support that. However, I think that, as long as I can amass enough data, there will be a pattern of some tight friendships between particular individuals, a few individuals who are social butterflies, and then some who are socially isolated. I’m hoping that the tightly bonded and social butterflies will have a pattern of lower cortisol concentrations (thus supporting my hypotheses). I also suspect, at least at the moment, that the individuals that are the most isolated are the subadults and adult females without offspring—I’m wondering if that pattern will hold when I look at the data.

Sometimes, from watching the monkeys, you get a subjective impression regarding what’s going on, and it’ll be really interesting to see if the data eventually supports that. Of course, I still have nearly a year of data collection to go, so it’ll definitely be a while.

Today I also had a bit of a conundrum trying to collect a fecal sample. I saw the sample fall, and then went down the area to look for it. At first, I could find it (which is sooo frustrating), but then, I saw a piece of the sample—wedged on the head of a daddy long-legs-ish spider. The problem then, became, how to successfully collect the sample and free the spider? I tried taking the edge of a folded leaf, and using another leaf, tried to pry it lose from the spider. Eventually, between my efforts and the spider’s wriggling, I managed to get it free and process it. Let’s hope that the spider doesn’t have any pheromones or anything like that on the top of its head that could affect the hormone analysis . . .

Jlo and Judah

2010-09-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

This is Judah

And this is Jlo!

Leila and Lorelai

2010-09-05T10:29:00.001-07:00

This is Lorelai, the juvie daughter of one of my favorite focal animals, Leila.

And these are pics of Leila herself!

I´m becoming habituated . . .

2010-09-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

The rainforest is a malleable place. At moments it seems absolutely magical, such as they rare occasion when you hear strange sounds that turn out to be coming from a tapir, or a day of following your monkeys with great visibility as they groom, play, and embrace. At other times, it is truly miserable, such as when you get so stuck in the swamp you have to crawl out, you get bitten by bullet ants, or you brush up again stinging plants that produces burning welts. But most of the time, you get very used to it, and it’s just very mundane—just like your backyard back home, only instead of squirrels in the trees, there are capuchins.

While that might sound anything but mundane, just as the monkeys get habituated to you, you become increasingly habituated to the forest. The creatures that seemed so exotic and exciting your first week start to become just another boring sight that you aren’t all that interested in. You look forward to the rare encounters of creatures you’re dying to see (tapir, jaguarundi, tamandua, and of course the holy grail of them all, jaguar), but fail to get excited at seeing the everyday creatures.
For example, on almost any day, a hike in the forest almost guarantees an encounter with strawberry and green-and-black poison dart frogs, highways of leaf-cutter ants busy at work, Ameiva festiva lizards, various small anoles, and orependulas. In addition there are almost an innumberable amount of insects and spiders (arachnids, not monkeys) that I have little interest in and don’t bother looking closely at (I’m more concerned with trying to keep spider webs, their residents, and their prey off my face—this doesn’t always work).

Yesterday, I had a frustrating day in which I could not find my monkeys. I spent hours hiking through the forest with absolutely no success. In addition to the above creatures, I saw a tarantula as big as my hand, keel-billed toucans, blue morpho butterflies, cat footprints just a bit smaller than the size of my hand (probably jaguarundi or ocelot—jaguarandi have been seen by a few lucky people, I haven’t heard of any sightings of ocelot), tapir tracks, and howler monkeys. Oh and I also saw capuchin monkeys in the backyard, clowning around right outside the kitchen, just after lunch. However, the sad thing was—this was my idea of a really disappointing day. Perhaps the sighting of something slightly more unusual could have made up for the lack of spider monkeys (I still get excited about seeing peccary, river otters, armadillos, coatis, and tayra, as well as unusual birds I don’t see very often) . . . But no spider monkeys means no data, which really stresses me out (especially in a week like this week, in which I have been feeling sick and thus not going out as often, and when I have been heading out, I’ve had really bad luck at finding/following my monkeys). But it nonetheless occurred to me yesterday that I’ve gotten really, really spoiled, and my habituation to the wonders of the forest means that I no longer enjoy or appreciate it as much as I should.

Fieldwork Blues

2010-09-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

I originally started this blog because I had serious field-blog-envy. I’d read other people’s postings about their fieldwork, and it make my miss the field. I was excited about getting to my own fieldwork, and sharing my stories to make all of my readers basilisk-green with envy.

Let me warn you then, that sometimes it’s much more fun to dream of fieldwork and read other people’s fieldwork tales than it is to be in the field.

I know this. I’ve said before that fieldwork is 90% drudgery and misery, and 10% of being so absolutely magical and amazing that it make you want to keep slogging through that miserable 90%. But when you are at home, comfortably ensconced in all the comforts of home, reading stories about fieldwork while you are snuggled on the couch with your cat, somehow fieldwork sounds so much more exciting. And memory dims all your moments of being miserable in the field, and instead you remember that one really amazing day when you saw howler monkeys, a coati, and iguana, in the same tree, or the day you saw a juvie female spider using a stick as a tool to scratch herself, or the days when you managed to stick with one party of spider monkeys and follow them for four hours straight.

Yet, somehow, when I was in the US on a two-year break from fieldwork (which was never my intention, but waiting for grant money and life happening in the meantime caused me to push back my fieldwork until about a year later than I originally planned), that’s all I seemed to remember. And this summer, I’ve gotten a HUGE dose of the many downsides of fieldwork.

For starters, there’s illness. Now, I tend to have a pretty dismal immune systems, so I spend plenty of time being sick wherever I am. But this summer, I began my fieldwork with an unknown ailment (according to the doctor, “a bug,”) that slowed me down and majorly cut down on the amount of time I felt able to actually spend in the forest with the monkeys. And the past few weeks (including my time spent in the US), I’ve had bad stomach problems, so between my trip to the US and a week of feeling miserably sick, I missed out on about two weeks of data collection. Being sick is miserable, no matter where you are. But in the field, it’s twice (if not thrice) as worse, because in addition to feeling horrible, you’re away from all the comforts of home, plus you’re stressing out on all the data you might be missing out on. And the combination of feeling icky, stressing about your research, and being bored and frustrated at the station just make you feel worse. And in case that’s not bad enough, there’s always the fun of clinics in a country where you can’t fluently speak the language . . . (although I realize it could be much worse—I’m grateful to be in Costa Rica, where the medical care is good and I at least speak a bit of the language).

And then there’s all the biting and stinging things in the forest. I am the mosquitoes equivalent of crème brulee, tiramisu, and cheesecake, all rolled into one—they absolutely swarm me, and I think I regularly become anemic from losing too much blood to them. While they are the biggest irritation, then there’s the occasional biting ants, and then bullet ants and stinging plants. Today I brushed by one of the stinging plants, which leaves burning welts on any skin it comes in contact with. And yesterday I got two bullet ant bites, which brings my lifetime number of bites up to 6.

Of course, there’s always the swamp. My field site has tons of swamp, and every time I’m stuck in it, I think of The Neverending Story, when Atreyu’s horse dies in the swamp because he thought sad thoughts. Whenever I start sinking in the swamp, my first thought is of poor Atreyu’s horse (which of course, is a sad thought, which would only hasten my drowning if El Zota’s swamps worked the same way as they did in the movie—luckily they don’t. Sad thoughts or happy thoughts, I can usually drag myself out by crawling, if all other attempts to haul myself out have failed). At least right now, the swamps are actually at a minimum, because it’s been incredibly dry here lately (dry here as in not a lot of rain—it’s still super-humid).
But really, the two major frustrations I have right now are 1) not getting as much data as I would like (because those damn spider monkeys are not cooperating!), and 2) being away from my boyfriend. I can put up with the swamp, the insects, all the evils the forest has to throw at me, if I can spend some quality time with the spiders. And I do, sometimes, but more often, it seems like either the monkeys are being elusive, or I find them, and they find ways to evade me shortly into following them. And when I’m not spending enough quality time with them, it’s hard to stay motivated and enjoy being here. And the less I enjoy being here, the more I feel guilty for having to be away for so long, and the more I regret the life choices that have lead me here (why, oh why, did I decide to go to grad school years ago? Why did I decide that I had to do my research on the social behavior and endocrinology of wild spider monkeys? Couldn’t I have picked an easier dissertation project?). Of course, I knew exactly what I was getting myself into . . . so I only have myself to blame.

Monkeys in the backyard

2010-08-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

I have been slacking in writing field updates—between being sick, getting data (and, the downside of getting data, having to enter it!), and a very busy trip to the US for a wedding . . . Writing has been at the top of the list. And while I sometimes find myself mentally composing what I want to write (usually when I’m wandering through the forest on days when the monkeys are scarce), I rarely get to it. However, I’m going to try to get better (and as the amount of people at the station starts to dwindle now that summer is coming to end, I will probably be more motivated to write).

Anyway, one of the most wonderful things about my field station is that is it nestled right next to the forest. As a result, we have a lots of animals visiting the station—including all three species of monkey. My room has a window facing the backyard, so I can boast of having seen capuchins, howlers, and spider monkeys from my bed (as well as an emerald basilisk, a coati, and a few keel-billed toucans and orependulas)! While all three species are not there all the time (that would make things too easy), the capuchins seem to visit nearly every day. For a while, a couple female spiders and their kids would visit every day as well, but for the past week, they’ve been makings themselves a bit scarcer than usual. As for the howlers, they are usually the most infrequent visitors, but when they roll through, they tend to stick around a bit longer, and are useful for providing a morning wake-up call.

Today however, the spider monkeys have returned. I spent the early afternoon reading/taking pictures at the gazebo in the lagoon, trying to avoid the afternoon heat. However, the spiders announced themselves with a flurry of whinnies and a bit of crashing through the trees, so I ran back to my room and got back into my field clothes and grabbed my gear. They then spent the afternoon traveling along the creek that runs wraps around the station, concluding with many of the females feeding in a Spondias tree in the backyard. There was a HUGE party of monkeys, which later fissioned into several parties—I counted 5 adult/subadult males, 2 subdadult females, 4 adult females, and 4 immatures. Considering that the parties I generally run into are about 2-5 individuals (unless there is a big party tree fruiting), this was quite a gathering. Even more exiting, was that one of the females in the party, Agata, was a female I haven’t seen since the end of June. I previously had only one 10-focal on her, so it was a big relief to see her and get some data on her. I’m still at only 4 focals on her, while my top female (Leila) is at 31 focals—so clearly I have a lot more catching up to do. But it’s a start!
Even better, about an hour after I finished my last focal (which took me back into the forest, where I had a run-in with a painful stinging plant, which prompted me to call it a day), the spiders returned to the backyard! They were whinnying and vocalizing quite a bit, and continued to chatter even after it got dark (it’s the first night I’ve gotten to listen to whinnies during dinner!). That means they are spending the night close by!

I also have pictures that were supposed to go along with this post, but unfortunately my attempts to write a post with Word and then upload it here did not work with the pics--next time I promise to make include some beautiful pics of my backyard visitors!

Rainy day monkey watching

2010-06-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

From June 13, 2010 (again)

The Ficus is fruiting! Right now (or rather, as I wrote this earlier today), I´m sitting in the gazebo on the lagoon, as the rain pours down in sheets around us. But I can still see the Ficus bursting with ripe pink figs. Every few minutes, I peer through my binoculars, to see a brown ball of fur hunkered down. I know that brown mass contains two monkeys: Adult female Evelyn, and her juvie daughter Elsa. Earlier, when it began to drizzle, they continued foraging, but as it began to pour, they moved lower down in the tree. And there they are, an immobile mass of resting monkeys. There were at least two other monkeys in the ficus, but I´m not sure where they are now. Unaided, I can´t even see Evelyn and Elsa, and if I hadn´t seen them moving to their resting spot, I wouldn´t have known where to find that brown mass in the tangle of branches, leaves, and fruit.

The Ficus is what I call the party tree. I´ve been here twice before when its fruited, and each time for several days the spiders spend most of their days there, moving away only when the capuchins occupied the tree. Often, they´d even sleep there. The spiders and caps gorged themselves on figs, until the tree was fairly depleted or the ripe fruits. Finally, at the end, the howler monkeys would arrive, foraging among the mostly unripe fruits that remained.

It´s still raining, but the downpour is lessening. Evelyn and Elsa are still resting in the same spot. Through my binoculars, I can make out just a portion of Elsa´s face, pressed up against her mother´s fur. Both she and her mother have shifted slightly, though they remain tightly huddled. I love the way spider monkeys sleep. They tend to sit upright, hunch their backs and curl their limbs and tails, either around themselves and their resting partners. They then tuck their heads down, completing the transformation to an immobile, huddled mass of fur. When I did observations in the morning at Brookfield Zoo, there would usually be a small clustrer of monkeys huddled in a quiet corner. Occasionally, Evita and Elvis would look up and whinny at me, and then tuck their heads back down.

On the frustrating side, the phone at the station hasn´t been working for a full week now, and it´s VERY frustrating. Some workers came down from the telephone company but they weren´t able to fix it. At least now they´ve identified the problem, but a replacement part is needed to fix it. I´m really hoping they will show up tomorrow with the new part and finally fix it. Everyone is getting sick of hearing me whine about how much i miss talking to my boyfriend, but it´s been a whole week! I can handle the long distance fine when we can talk regularly, but going a week without talking is about my limit.

Learning to ID monkeys

2010-06-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

From June 13, 2010

Nearly every day we have spider monkeys that visit the station. Sometimes we’ll come back from the forest, and at the station, capuchins and spiders are at the station. There have been two mother-offspring pairs that have been regularly visiting. One pair is the golden female that I’ve named Ariadne, and her infant son Aaron (who, to the amusement of everyone here, I’ve named after my boyfriend). Aaron is an older infant, who travels dorsally on his mom most of the time, but has been making a few forays through the trees on his own. The other pair are Evelyn and Elsa—Evelyn is a large, dark reddish-brown female, with a dark face with markings that I call a “joker smile,” where, she has light markings on either side of her mouth that curl up a bit. Her daughter, Elsa, is a young juvenile-1, who seems to be locomoting most of the time on her own, but has occasionally snagged a ride on mom. Elsa has similar coloring to her mother, and she has a large pink patch around her mouth that curls up in the same “joker smile.” Most infants and younger juveniles have large pink patches around their mouths and eyes, and as they grow older they get more pigmented (by adulthood, some have completely darkened faces, whereas others retain some of the pink around their eyes and mouth).

For the most part, when I focus on identifying features, I start with color (the monkeys here range from golden blond to a deep reddish color to dark brown) and then I focus on “hair-do” and facial marking. Spiders tend to have either slight “cone-heads” or “cheek-fluff,” and then they sometimes have variation in pigmentation on their faces, or interesting facial markings like the ones I´ve described above. Something I really need to get better at is identifying individuals from their hind ends. I´ve heard the skin around the anogenital region, and the color and shape of their genitals as well, help with IDing, especially considering that´s usually the angle we see them at more often. I guess it need to get better at starting at monkey butts and genitals, instead of focusing on faces!

Fieldwork Begins

2010-06-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

From June 7, 2010

This morning I was woken by the sound of capuchin vocalizations in the backyard. Because my current room has a window next to the bed that overlooks the yard, the capuchins were right by me. Though we didn’t go out today because we’re going to be heading to town to take care of a few errands, its nice to start out the day watching monkeys.

Overall, we’re off to a good start, although I know Aga and Katy are feeling very intimidated. Thus far, we’ve been running into spiders about twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon, but visiblity has been pretty tough. Just seeing individuals clearly enough to get age and sex categories down is proving challenging, and under those observation conditions, conducting focal follows and getting individual IDs

Nonetheless, I’m trying to remain optimistic. I have been able to identify one male, Dracula, who I’ve seen as a subadult four years ago, and have run into again two years ago. He’s easy to identify because he has these triangular markings above his eyes, giving him the appearance of a vampire-like hairline. I also remember that when I started my masters research, I worried that it would be impossible, but I managed to learn to individually recognize all the juvies and their moms, as well as a few other individuals. Furthermore, I did managed to collect 70 hours of focal data, and so with more time and hopefully a greater learning curve, things should improve. And though the visibility has been bad lately, I know that sometimes visibility is just impossible, but other times we do actually get to see the monkeys much more clearly.

It’s so nice to be back in the forest as well. We’ve been running into capuchins a lot, as well as some howlers, and the forest has been relatively dry, which makes the trails a bit more pleasant. The field station is a comfortable home-away-from-home, the food as been delicious, and with my phone card I’ve been able to talk to my boyfriend nearly every day. So thus far, though I am worried about getting the research underway, I’m happy and content in the field, and actually really glad to be down here. So thus far, I definitely think I’m off to a good start, and hope that as I get my “forest legs” back, we should start making headway towards IDing individuals and being able to start collecting data.

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong...

2010-06-02T16:44:00.001-07:00

We haven't even gotten to the field site yet, but our little research team has already been plagued with some major frustrations. I have two people joining me now, and one more that will be hear in a couple weeks--Katy, an undergrad who will be my summer assistant, and Aga and Jason, both masters students that will be conducting their own projects on the spiders while help me getting my project off the ground. Aga, Katy, and I were all supposed to fly from Chicago to San Jose yesterday, and leave for El Zota today. However, Aga's purse (containing both her passport and drivers license) was stolen in Chicago on Sunday. Since everything was closed on Memorial Day, she had to reschedule her flight a day later so that she could run around getting replacement documents on Tuesday. This also meant delaying our departure to El Zota by a day, so we could all go together.

Originally, Aga and Katy were on one flight, I was on another, and we were all going to meet up at the San Jose airport. However, since Katy would be without Aga, I was worried about find her at the airport in San Jose. However, I made a little sign with her name in bright pink pen, and waited for the hour after my flight (her flight was supposed to come in shortly after mine, but it was delayed) for her. When the Delta passengers were pouring out of customs (I was waiting with a few other people waiting to greet passengers on the flight, and their friends/family had all arrived), I was approached by a girl who cautiously peered at my sign, and then approached me. Katy? I asked, and she nodded. However, it was not until we got into a cab, and were just about the leave the airport, that we determined that SHE WAS NOT THE RIGHT PERSON (and her name was NOT Katy--despite her nod in the affirmative). She didn't have her glasses on, and thus didn't realize that she had read the sign wrong. Who would have thought? So at that point, we had to ask the cab driver to stop, let her and her stuff out, and he was annoyed, so I decided to continue on to the hotel and hope my assistant Katy would remember the hotel name and would get a cab. Unfortunately, she didn't know which hotel we were staying at, expected to meet me, and was really freaking out. She ended waiting at the airport for a very long time, at which point a nice man who worked at the airport gave her a ride to the Holiday Inn, where she was able to check her email and look up the correct hotel information. I feel this could have ended very badly, but luckily she made it here.

And now, today, my credit card has gone missing, either lost or stolen, I'm not sure. I used it earlier to pay for the second night of our hotel stay, and I'm SURE I put it back in my purse or wallet. I have my purse, have my wallet, but not that credit card. Luckily, my sister informs me that the fraud department had called my cell phone (she has my phone, and sent me an email). However, the stupid hotel phone hear won't accept phone cards, and requires paying with credit card so they can charge you exorbitantly, so right now I can't call to reach the credit card company and confirm that my card has gone missing.

Nonetheless, I feel like things aren't going so well for us (and this is on top of a lot of other minor hassles and frustrations). At least Katy and I had a good time visiting the zoo here in San Jose, which isn't too impressive, but actually has a decent spider monkey exhibit with a large group of beautiful spider monkeys. No matter how much anything else might go wrong, watching spider monkeys can always make us feel better.

Tomorrow we're off to the field station, where I will be cut off from internet (but will be able to have an easier time calling and receiving calls, which will be a relief). But then we can settle into the station, and get to work, and enjoy the beautiful forest.

Fieldwork Anxiety

2010-05-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving for Costa Rica to begin my 15 months of dissertation fieldwork in 1 week. And I'm freaking out. There is so much I still need to get done--supplies are still on order, still some field stuff I have to inventory and replace, grants I want to get done and give to my advisor so she can submit them when I'm in the field, and I need to get my apartment packed up and cleaned out and move my stuff. And I'm dealing with the stress of having to leave my boyfriend (and the pets) for all that time, which he's really not happy with. We will see each other in August, he come down to Costa Rica in January, but still, it's a long time to be apart, especially when I'll have very infrequent internet access, and have to share a phone with everyone at the field station.

It really is one of the ironic aspects of my dissertation--I'm studying the relationship between social relationships and stress, and that requires putting putting such strain on my social relationships that it causes tons of stress (and grad school and dissertation work provide enough stress on their own!). It really is such a hard thing about field primatology. Many of the people in my grad program do bioarch, osteology, and forensic arch., so often their fieldwork means going for shorter periods of time. And their research subjects stay put--they know what they are going to accomplish each day, instead of worrying about whether they will find their bones and how long it will be before they will abruptly speed away (the unfortunately thing about spider monkeys, when they decide to go, they GO--and depending on their travel path, its not always possible to follow them. They fly through the trees, but for the human trying to navigate the swamp, it can be impossible to keep up).

All that stress has cause me to up all night worrying, and then during the day its so hard to be productive to get everything done. I love my monkeys, I love the field, I look forward to those magical days in the rainforest watching monkeys and running into other animals (which, granted, are tempered by the miserable days when you can't find the monkeys, its raining nonstop, and you fall in the swamp) but sometimes the sad thing about doing research on what you love is that the joys of it can be eclipsed by all the work and stress and sacrifices that it requires.

Path of the Jaguar

2010-05-12T09:52:00.000-07:00

Check out this video about jaguar corridors in Costa Rica!

Devra Kleiman was a great conservation hero

2010-05-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

Devra Kleiman, one of the most inspiring conservation heroes EVER, passed away a couple day of ago. Dr. Kleinman was a pioneer in captive animal behavioral research and in conservation biology, and it is largely due to her legacy that a strong relationship exists between the two. She really is the reason that golden lion tamarins are not extinct; they are the only species I know of that has improved their conservation status (from critically endangered to endangered). GLT's are not out of the woods yet (or, more accurately, back into the rainforest); they are still endangered. BUT, due to Dr. Kleinman and her colleagues, they are still there, both in captivity and in the wild. And thanks to their efforts, there is now a very effective net of conservation awareness and efforts focused on conserving them.

When Dr. Kleiman first began her work with the National Zoo in the 1970s, golden lion tamarins were not successfully breeding. Unfortunately, no one realized that they did not live in multi-male/multi-female groups in the wild. Dr. Kleinman and her colleagues' research led to the conclusion that they should be housed in pairs, and once that change was put into effect, GLTs became calmer, bonded, and began producing offspring.

From there, Dr. Kleiman and her colleagues performed a series of conservation miracles. They persuaded zoos to work together, in order to forge breeding exchanges to maintain genetic diversity. They then persuaded zoos to hand over ownership to the Brazilian government, and then take select breeding groups down to Brazil, put them through "How to live in the wild" bootcamp, and reintroduce the captive-born families into the wild. These attempts were not without setbacks; in the early years of the program, many captive-borns struggled in the wild, and did not survive for very long. But Kleiman's team kept trying to improve their efforts, and began performing "soft releases" in which the released animals were monitored and supported/protected when necessary. Thanks to these changes, things improved. Captive-borns still struggled with living the wild, but with support, they were able to live long enough to raise offspring, and the wild-born offspring were far more successful than their zoo-born parents. As a result, the population started increasing. Furthermore, a successful local and international conservation awareness campaign ensured that further steps were taken to protect existing forests, plant corridors, and raise local awareness. The golden lion tamarin is one of conservation's big success stories, and its legacy has influenced captive animal husbandry and welfare, reintroduction programs, and field conservation programs.

In short, this woman was a hero, and is a huge inspiration for me. If I achieve half of what she achieved in her lifetime, I will consider my life a huge success. She didn't do it alone; she had a team of colleagues that all actively made the GLT reintroduction and other projects a success. However, she was essentially the person that started the entire process, and kept going and persuading others to collaborate, cooperate, and contribute to making it happen. I hope the fields of primatology, zoo behavioral research, and conservation biology always remember her legacy.

For more information, see:

Kleinman's Washington Post Obituary

NPR's Remembering Devra Kleiman

2010-04-29T13:47:00.001-07:00

I just discovered this video on National Geographic about a pet monkey transitioning to sanctuary life at Jungle Friends. It features a few cameos from some old monkey friends of mine (Puchi! and Udi, who I knew as a little guy!), as well as my human friend Erin!

The efficacy of zoo education: empirical evidence

2010-04-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

Here, I want to outline the results of the study on assessing the education impacts of visiting zoos by Falk and colleagues (2007). This is the study that has been heralded by the AZA and various AZA facilities, but has come under critique for methodological drawbacks and overextending claims based on its results. The full document can be accessed at the AZA page on visitors and public research.

This study examined the following questions (Falk et. al, 2007:5-6):

• How do aquariums and zoos contribute to people’s personal and emotional connections to animals and their conservation?
• How do zoos and aquariums contribute to the ways people act and behave toward animals?
• How do we increase these impacts? What do we do that is successful?
• Who are our visitors?

They examined these questions in a visitor-tracking study at two zoos and two aquariums. Visitors were randomly approached by researchers as they entered the zoo, and were asked if they would be willing to participate in the study. One adult from each consenting group were then asked to fill out a pre-visit survey on conservation knowledge and motivation for the visit. When they were done with their visit, they then approached the researcher to identify which exhibits they visited, their path through the zoo, and to answer interview questions. A random sample of those visitors that provided contact information were later contacted via phone or email and questioned about what they recalled from that visit and its impact on their knowledge and attitudes. Falk and colleagues (2007:9-10) summary of their results area as follows:

Visitors arrive at zoos and aquariums with specific identity-related motivations and these motivations directly impact how they conduct their visit and what meaning they make from the experience.

Overall, visitors bring with them a higher-than-expected knowledge about basic ecological concepts. A small percentage group of visitors (approximately 10%)
did show significant changes in their conservation-related knowledge. However because of the higher than expected entering knowledge of most visitors, there were no statistically significant changes in overall knowledge.

Most visitors (61%) found that their zoo and aquarium experience supported and reinforced their values and attitudes towards conservation. Visits to accredited zoos and aquariums prompted many individuals (54%) to reconsider their role in environmental problems and conservation action, and to see themselves as part of the solution.

Roughly half (42%) of all visitors believed that zoos and aquariums play an important role in conservation education and animal care. A majority (57%) of visitors said that their visit experience strengthened their connection to nature.

While their results are encouraging, Marino and colleagues (2010) critique their conclusions, citing methodological flaws. Based on their assessment, they conclude that the AZA and its associated institutions make claims based on Falk and colleagues (2007) study that go beyond its findings. They contend that they study was not designed in a way that provided adequate opportunity to falsify their hypotheses. Furthermore, they critique the methodology on a number of levels, including the selection bias of participants (participants that agreed to participate may have different attitudes about zoos and conservation than those that choose not to participate), and the response bias that may emerge from asking participants to reflect on their beliefs. Furthermore, Marino and colleagues (2010) note that Falk and colleagues's (2007) study never assessed attitudes that may have worsened as a result of their visit (for example, increased perception of animals as objects of entertainment).

Marino and colleagues (2010) stress that the aim of their paper is not to critique the AZA's education efforts; rather, they hope that their critique will encourage new studies examining the impact of zoos on visitors that are methodologically stronger.

Given that Falk and colleagues (2007) study remains the best attempt to assess zoos impact on visitors, it seems that it provides some evidence that, for at least a subset of zoo-goers, visiting the zoo strengthened their interest in conservation and may have prompted them to consider how they can contribute to conservation efforts. However, these visitors may be those that are already somewhat knowledgeable about animals and conservation, and their visits may just be reaffirming beliefs and attitudes that they already hold. However, what about the rest of visitors? How might those who choose not to participate be different? And what about the 39% of participants who didn't feel their visit reinforced their conservation attitudes? And the 46% who didn't feel their visit prompted a reconsideration of their personal impact on the environment and conservation efforts? Or, more troubling, what about the 58% of participants who didn't believe that zoos play an important role in conservation and animal care?

It is apparent to me from my reading of these two studies that the jury is still out on how a visit to the zoo impacts its visitors. Furthermore, I suspect that the impacts are a mixed bag: for those that visit the zoo with a strong prior interest in animals, nature, and conservation, a trip to the zoo might reaffirm their beliefs and interests. However, for visitors who take a trip to the zoo as a means of amusement and entertainment, it is unclear whether they leave the zoo with any greater understanding of the animals or larger conservation goals. Furthermore, I suspect that the biggest educational impact that zoos have is on children: I think studies that specifically examine how a visit to the zoo influences a child's knowledge, beliefs, and attitude is crucial to understanding whether zoos are meeting their education goals.

References:

Falk,JH,Reinhard,EM,Vernon,CL,Bronnenkant,K,Deans,NL Heimlich, JE.2007. Why Zoos &
Aquariums Matter: Assessing the Impact of a Visit. Association of Zoos & Aquariums. Silver Spring, MD.

Marino, L, Lilienfeld, SO, Malamud, R, Nobis, N, Broglio, R. 2010. Do zoos and aquariums promote attitude change in visitors? A critical evaluation of the American Zoo and Aquarium study. Society and Animals 18: 126-138.

Happy World Tapir Day!

2010-04-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

baby cheeto!

2010-04-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

aka a baby langur :)

Zoo goals: Conservation, Education, and Research

2010-04-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

Before I discuss the results of recent studies on the efficacy of zoos/aquariums on visitor education, I would like to briefly outline some of the focuses and potential outcomes on each of these three goals.

Conservation
Zoos aim to meet conservation goals through several means.

1)Zoos are often considered as a "biological ark," that can maintain a population of animals that may be declining in captivity. Thus, their goals are, ostensibly, to maintain a captive population to prevent total extinction, as well as to provide a source population for re-introductions. However, there are some obstacles to achieving these goals. The small populations are at risk for inbreeding. Though zoos usually carefully manage breeding with the goal of maintaining genetic diversity, they may be constrained by the amount of genetic variability within the existing captive population, as well as space constraints that limit the amount of animals that can be maintained within the zoo system (for the US, this would be the AZA). Furthermore, while there have been some succesful reintroduction projects, reintroduction is difficult to do (especially for primates and other social animals). This may be because animals may be have lost crucial survival skills, or because of the risks of introducing disease to wild populations.

2)Coordinating and funding field conservation efforts. This is probably the most crucial contribution that zoos make toward conservation. By raising money for field conservation, and funding field projects (or in some cases, coordinating field projects themselves, for example, see Lincoln Park Zoo's conservation projects). In particular, I am a big fan of zoo exhibits that provide a link between their captive animals and their habitat in the wild, and specifically encourage donations toward that end.

Education
1)Zoos seek to educate the general public through informing visitors about conservation crises, and inspiring them to care enough to become involved through donations or other means. Furthermore, they provide education material on specific animals and habitats, to increase visitor's knowledge base about animals and their habitats. Ultimately, the idea is that if people feel a connection or empathy for the animals, they will feel motivated to take greater efforts toward supporting conservation, through moderating their environmental impact, participating in local conservation efforts, and donations to field conservation funds. This is particularly important for children, as they often spear-head family changes--for example, the recycling movement largely grew through schools developing recycling programs, and educating children on the importance of recycling; the kids in turn, encouraged their parents to recycle. Children also represent the next generation of potential conservationists.

Research
1) Zoo populations provide opportunities for many different avenues of research. In particular, the genetic research and management of small populations is crucial for maintaining genetic diversity of zoo populations themselves. However, this research is also helpful in learning to manage and conserve diversity in wild populations, that are often increasingly fragmented and isolated.

2)They provide observation and sampling opportunities for topics that may not be feasible in the wild (for example, projects that require close-range observation, or fecal sampling that may not be possible in the wild--for example, fecal samples collected from thee he spider monkeys at Brookfield Zoo before and after a stressful experience-a vet exam-are essential to my pilot research).

3)Finally, zoo research is crucial in monitoring the welfare and health of the animal themselves, and in making modifications to promote welfare.

However, while a number of zoos have active research programs, I think that are often an untapped and underutilized resource. Unfortunately though, gaining permission to conduct research at zoos (even just observational research from public observation areas--gaining access to non-public areas or fecal samples can be even more challenging), often requires jumping through hoops, or having connections within the zoo. This varies widely, but some zoos are not that supportive of facilitating outsider research (as with jobs in the zoo world, having connections within the zoo world often makes a difference).

Happy Earth Day!

2010-04-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

In honor of Earth Day, I thought I share a couple pictures from my beautiful forest. The first is of a female spider monkey feeding, and the second is the roots of my favorite ficus tree. Both represent some of the beauty and wonder of the rainforests that we need to conserve. Over the time that I have been doing research in Costa Rica, the status of black-handed (also known as Central American) spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) has declined from vulnerable to endangered. This is likely due to the reduction of habitat, because spider monkeys need large tracts of forest, and are one of the indicators of a large, healthy forest (the forests, in turn rely on spider monkeys for the dispersal of seeds). We need to intensify efforts to conserve and protect tropical forest habitats, if we want to continue to live in a world that can sustain these, and other, beautiful animals in the wild.

Serious monkey business

2010-04-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

Click here for a very eloquent explanation of why primates are both fascinating and important to study. Serious Monkey Business is definitely a blog to keep checking out!

Do zoos accomplish their goals?

2010-04-14T10:32:00.001-07:00

Marc Bekoff's blog at Psychology Today has a post entitled Zoos and Aquariums do not accomplish what they claim to do. He brings up the issue that animals living in captivity often live compromised lives, and notes that African elephants have shorter lifespans in captivity versus the wild. He addresses a study conducted by the AZA that concluded that zoos were succeeding in their education goals, as well a study critiquing it's conclusions based on methodological issues.

There's a lot of complex issues raised in Bekoff's post that I'd like to address, but unfortunately I'm just about to head off to the AAPAs, so I don't have time. I also have not had a chance to read either of these studies, which I would like to to do. Nonetheless, since it brings up a lot of topics I'd like to tackle in the near, I'd like to outline some of the questions raised, which I hope to explore in future posts.

First, underlying Bekoff's post is the issue of whether it is ethical to keep the animals in captivity. This is an important issue in itself, and it's one I would like to examine in more detail. This, of course, is dependent on 1) the conditions of captivity (which can vary largely), 2) the health and welfare of the animals (which also will vary largely by species), and 3) the benefits of captivity (ie,in this case whether zoos are achieving their goals).

To address the health and welfare of captive animals, in my next post(s), I'd like to examine these questions in detail using two examples, African elephants and spider monkeys (surprise, surprise). While I was originally tempted to use "primates" as a broader category, there's so much variation (consider the space, enrichment, and social requirements needed for chimpanzees, vs. marmosets) that it's probably best just to focus on what I know best, and perhaps just comment how the situation may vary for other primates.

Second, Bekoff's posts is particularly addressing whether zoos are achieving their goals. While his post, and the two studies mentioned, both focus on education, I think we should also consider the other goals of zoos and aquariums: research, conservation, and, (arguably) entertainment. How important are each of these goals? And how are zoos successfully achieving these goals, or how are they falling short of them?

While I hope to address those questions in another post, for now, I'd like to raise some questions to my readers:

1) Do you believe that it is justified to keep wild animals in zoos and aquariums? Do your opinions vary based on taxa considered, or which goals are being achieved?
2) Do you feel that zoos have educated you or otherwise influence you?
3) Out of the three main zoo goals (education, conservation, research), how well do you think zoos address each of these? Are there any particular successes or shortcomings that you are aware of?
4) How does entertainment fit into these goals, and how important is this a consideration? If zoogoers go do the zoo as a recreational activity, are they get anything out of it?

I personally feel that zoos have played an important role in influencing my decision to pursue primatology, my education as a primatologist/behavioral endocrinologist, and in providing opportunities for my own research. Nonetheless, I do think the health and welfare of the animals in captivity should be a top priority, and if zoos cannot provide an adequate environment for a given taxa, we need to reconsider whether it is ethical to keep those animals in captivity. Furthermore, I think that zoos have lofty goals, but we need to critically examine how well they are achieving them, and question if they are really fulfilling their mission. But most importantly, I think that we need to examine these issues, and then, address the hard part: if they are falling short, how can this be remedied? What are the best solutions?

And on that note, I'm off to New Mexico. I'm hoping to visit the Rio Grande Zoo while I'm there, and I'll keep ruminating on these questions while I'm there.

Baby Sifaka!

2010-04-13T18:21:00.000-07:00

Baby Mandrill!

2010-04-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

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Grooming, group size, and feeding priority in female Rhesus macaques

2010-03-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

(Photo by James Warwick/Getty Images. On the left is Esther, on the right is Terry, and they were two of my favorite focal animals ever!)

Here is the abstract of the poster I am currently working on for the AAPAs:

Grooming, group size, and feeding priority in female Rhesus macaques
M.A. Rodrigues¹, D.L. Hannibal²

The social brain hypothesis predicts that larger groups require greater investment in allogrooming for social cohesion. It has been suggested that low-ranking individuals allogroom to gain tolerance from high-ranking individuals for access to food resources. Here, we report on data collected from twenty-eight adult female rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico. Contrary to the social brain hypothesis predictions, we found that individuals in large groups (10.3%) do not invest more time in grooming than individuals in small groups (13.6%) (F=1.302, p=0.263). Furthermore, time spent allogrooming does not explain access to food resources among middle- and low-ranking females (F=0.403; p=0.533), nor does the interaction of group size and grooming (F=0.032; p=0.859), the interaction of rank and grooming (F=0.005, p=0.943), or the interaction of group size, rank, and grooming (F=2.684; p=0.118). The interaction of group size and rank was significant (F=6.123, p=0.022). Removing grooming from the model, however, negates the significance of the group size and rank interaction. The benefits of membership in a large group outweigh the disadvantages of increased intragroup competition for low-ranking individuals. In smaller groups, however, low-ranking individuals are constrained by both intergroup and intragroup competition. Furthermore, grooming does not appear to offset the disadvantages of low rank or small group size. While increasing group size and rank improve access to food resources, and the contribution of grooming for tolerance was not significant in this study, further investigation on the role of grooming in the complex dynamics of intergroup and intragroup competition for food resource is warranted.

Round-up of interesting posts

2010-03-30T13:53:00.001-07:00

There's some great posts/news articles I've seen recently that I wanted to highlight.

--Seeing Race's discussion of Belief in Racial Equality and the American Dream

--Laelaps dicussion of Hyena Laughs

--Hug the Monkey's post on Mothering more Essential than Food

--UIUC's Lab of Evolutionary Endocrinology (I have lab envy! wish it existed back when I was an undergrad there!) has a fantastic post on Premenstrual Syndrome

--BeastApe links to a great story on Baboons raid wine grapes farms in South Africa

--Prancing Papio's discussion of Shifts in Mating Systems in Snub-nosed Monkeys

In Defense of Primatology

2010-03-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

Do you think that primatology is all about cute fuzzy-wuzzy animals? Look at the above picture. That's a picture of me with a nice dollop of howler monkey feces on my head. Cute, right?

This post is in part of reaction to a blog post entitled "Why I am not a primatologist" by PalMD over at ScienceBlogs, and because I was rather offended by it, I feel I need to address some misconceptions about what primatologists do, and WHY we do it.

There's a general misunderstanding that, because we study cute, charismatic animals that share a lot of similarities with us (not surprisingly, because we ARE part of this taxonomic group), our science is somehow less valid or relevant. Or that our results and conclusions are questionable, because we must be completely swayed by our narcissistic attachment to anything cute and human-like. We are assumed to be unreasonably biased by anthropomorphic interpretations and bonds with our study animals (either generally, to the species/taxa, or to individual animals). This assumption is summed up quite well by the term "monkey huggers."

Now first, let me start out by saying, I'm probably the most cute-oriented person you will ever come across, and I'm sure that comes across in my posts. I think many primates, particularly spider monkeys, are cute and charming. I find baby animals of all kinds adorable, and am a huge fans of websites such as zooborns and LOLcats. Looking at cute pictures or videos, or interacting with quite animals (or children) are generally a great way for me to deal with stress (probably because the oxytocin response to this quite stimuli dampens my normally high stress levels).

BUT, quite honestly, that has NOTHING to do with why I STUDY primates. If my goal was to spend time watching and cuddling something cute and furry, I could very easily stay home with my foster dog and cats (instead of leaving them, my boyfriend, and my friends to spend over a year in an isolated, swampy, mosquito-infest rainforest). Or if I wanted to turn that motivation into a career, I could spend much more time interacting with cute and furry animals if I worked at an animal shelter or as a veterinarian.

The reason I study primates is because they are a fascinating group of socially and cognitive complex animals, and because studying them (our closest relatives) can provide insight into the evolution of aspects of these traits--which can help us to understand the evolutionary pressures that shaped our own species. Since I'm interested in the evolution of social bonds and relationships, primate social structures are great systems for studying these topics.

And I haven't been a "monkey person" my whole life. My first favorite animals were cheetahs. And by age 8, I had decided I wanted to study social development and vocalizations in humpback whales and bottlenose dolphins. My interest in primates did not develop until my sophomore-junior years of college, and have a lot to do with the courses I was taking in psychology, biology, and philosophy. In particular, my interest was piqued by the fact that ethical arguments regarding the treatments of primates (as well as other animals) were governed by assumptions of what these animals were cognitively and emotionally capable of, rather than the most recent research on these topics.

Furthermore, I've already addressed the issue of anthropomorphism previously. What I find baffling is why those of us that have spent the most time reading the literature as well as actually studying primates are assumed to be unreasonably biased, yet those that criticize us for anthropomorphism are assumed to be unbiased. First, the best thing you can do is too look at the actual data that primatologists are yielding, and see if it supports their conclusions. Second, its interesting that it seems to me that those that are most strongly against anthropomorphism (or, more accurately, attributing non-human animals with cognitive and emotional capabilities that are more impressive or complex than our previous assumptions), seem to have a strong bias toward using non-human animals, including primates, in invasive medical research. While that is an ethical question that is far too complex for me to address in this post, let me just say that I think the most reasonable way of guiding our ethical guidelines should be our most informed knowledge about the cognitive and emotional abilities of the animals in question.

PalMD states:

"Since mind is a brain-dependent phenomenon, there are often anatomic correlates to our behaviors, and even to our beliefs, but since other animals do not utilize complex language, we will never know if they have "beliefs" which correlate with behavior or anatomy. We don't really understand what it means for a human to have post-traumatic stress disorder, so when we say that an elephant has it, there is no way to know if that set of behaviors is anything like our own experiences."

We can't ask them, but there are a number of very sophisticated experiments that can be used to understand "beliefs" that are being used with both non-human primates as well as infants (for example, there are many studies that use gaze length in response to "normal" and "abnormal" scenarios--individuals stare longer at results that surprise them, such as suspension of gravity). However, the contexts in which we can use such methods can be challenging, because experimental set-ups are often limited to captive studies (although there are some brilliant field studies out there as well). As for say, post-traumatic stress, I would say, if the animal exhibits similar kinds of distress behavior (for example, extreme startle response, extreme anxiety, self-directed or stereotypic behaviors, avoidance of stimuli associated with the past trauma) in conjunction with similar physiological patterns (such as elevated cortisol concentrations), then I think it would be parsimonious to conclude that the experiences are likely very similar.

Nonetheless, I do think that there are some reasonable objections to the kinds of data that we get within primatology, particularly field primatology. Behavioral data is messy, and isn't ever going to be as clear-cut as other types of data. Physiological data is challenging too, when you are measuring hormones from fecal samples instead of blood, in very uncontrolled conditions. Sample sizes tend to be small, and getting data at all is VERY labor-intensive (have you ever spent any time trying to follow a quick-moving monkey through a swamp? It's not easy). So unfortunately, do build up data, it takes a while, and usually requires collaborative effort or compiling the conclusion of many studies.

But at the same time, it's important. Studying primates allows us to investigate certain selective pressures in the environments in which they involved. Furthermore, because so many primates are threatened, is crucial that we study them, because just the act of conducting research allows us to monitor and protect populations, and our findings may be applicable to conservation efforts (as well as efforts in improving captive welfare and reproduction).

Finally, I also want to address that often we take advantage of the cute and charismatic aspects of our study animals, as well as their similarities and relation to use, in efforts to raise awareness and interest in conservation. The truth is that highlighting these aspects are often one of the most successful ways of generating interest in the animals and their habitat, which is crucial to conservation efforts. And if you haven't noticed, primates are severely threatened. That alone, I think, is justification enough for posting as many cute monkey pictures as I can find.

Baby Squirrel Monkey!

2010-03-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

Head to Zooborns to read the full story on this adorable new addition to the Edmonton Valley Zoo.

Stress

2010-03-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

My dissertation project focuses on some aspects of stress, obviously. This is slightly ironic, because grad school, my project, fieldwork, and life in general all are quite good at showering me with stress.

I'm about two months away from my starting my fieldwork, and quite honestly, I'm starting to view it with dread. This is a shame, because I love the forest, I love my monkeys, and its been a couple years since I've been there (my field last field trip was two months in the summer of 2008). But, there's just some much to worry about before I can leave. Getting the financial stuff in order to take care of all that is necessary. Finishing up some unfinished projects, including the pilot project, that have been delayed by financial challenges, manuscript rejections, and some technical problems. About a month ago, my hard drive died. Luckily, my heroes at Microcenter were able to recover all my files, and put in a new hard drive, but because I have data, proposals, manuscripts, all sorts of stuff divided between the external harddrive, this new harddrive, and even my old laptop, I haven't been able to get things organized yet. And I still haven't re-installed SPSS, which means some data analysis I had been working on months ago isn't even accessible right now on this computer.

And if that weren't enough, I'm at the end of wrapping a quarter of teaching a new course. BUT, unfortunately, the flash drive I store ALL my teaching powerpoints, as well as other stuff, seems to have a mechanical failure. I've managed to deal with what's necessary to keep on top of my current class, (mostly), but what's sad is I've lost of teaching materials (including my lectures for Intro to Physical Anthropology, which after teaching six consecutive sections, have been refined to near-perfection). I still has some incomplete and older versions of some of that stuff, but not the most updated.

And then there's been some violent events on campus that have quite honestly shaken me a bit more than I thought they would. Two weeks ago, a girl was raped on campus at 8:45 on a Tuesday evening, right outside the building next to where the Anthro dept. is located. And to put that in perspective, I teach an evening class, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and less than an hour and half before that incident, I was standing just 50 m down from where the attack happened, waiting for my boyfriend to pick me up. And then just last Tuesday, there was a shooting on campus. It happened early in the morning (I think around 3 am?), and involved a maintenance worker who had received a poor work evaluation and was about to lose his job. He shot two colleagues, and then himself.

I know violent events happen all over--I've known that campuses are not always safe places, and I've taken two sessions of the RAD (Rape Aggression Defense) self-defense courses that are taught by campus police. And this weeks shooting is clearly not the first of university shootings. But this time, it's hit a bit close to home.

And finally, there's some odd drama with some people and situations involved with my field site. I'm not sure what's going on, and I don't know how serious it is, or if it's gonna affect my research, but it is worrying me.

So that's some of what's been affecting me lately. I've been increasingly up all night, unable to sleep, because I keep on stressing about things, or getting up in the middle of the night to work on stuff because I'm mentally running through it. But nonetheless, I've been feeling exhausted and worn out, and still feel like I'm not quite on top of everything.

At least all the reading I do about stress has made me aware of the importance of coping mechanisms, and right now I'm very greatful for the some of the social support I have from my boyfriend, friends, and pets. I think it's time to go cuddle with one of my kitties and see if some nice oxytocin rushes can calm my stress responses.

New baby bonobo!

2010-03-04T16:50:00.000-08:00

There's a new baby bonobo at the Columbus Zoo! The baby's mom is Susie, who I personally think is one of the most beautiful bonobos I've ever seen. In the video, you can see Susie with her new baby--there's also someone to the side, grooming Susie's arm. I'm not sure who it is, but I would suspect that it is Lola, Susie's juvie daughter.

I can't wait to go see how they're all doing!

Stress and sociality in a patrilocal primate: Do female spider monkeys tend and befriend?

2010-02-28T10:12:00.001-08:00

Welcome to my dissertations research! I defended my proposal last week, and I realize I haven't shared to much about my project yet. So, for starters, here's the abstract from my proposal!

Stress is an adaptive strategy that mobilizes the body for acute physical challenges. However, chronic stress has detrimental effects that can reduce health and reproductive fitness. Thus, coping mechanisms are valuable in reducing chronic stress. One such mechanism, the “tend-and-befriend” strategy, refers to affiliation between females as an adaptive strategy to deal with stress. This mechanism is proposed to be a widespread strategy throughout the primate order, and one that underlies patterns of female bonding in humans. Although this strategy has been documented in matrilineal primates characterized by female kinship bonds, there has not been documentation of this strategy among unrelated females. Such documentation is necessary to demonstrate that this strategy is unrelated to female philopatry. Since our hominid ancestors are presumed to be male-philopatric, examining if this strategy applies to unrelated females is essential to understanding the evolutionary context of this mechanism. Here, I propose to examine the tend-and-befriend strategy in a species characterized by fission-fusion social organization and female dispersal. I will examine the patterns of female-female social relationships, male aggression, and ecological variables on glucocorticoid concentrations, a measure of physiological stress, among female black-handed spider monkeys. I predict that strong female social relationships, regardless of relatedness, will be associated with low glucocorticoid levels. Behavioral, hormonal, genetic, and ecological data will be collected in a wild, habituated community. This research has direct implications for understanding the evolution of the stress-response, and whether bonding among unrelated females is a result of ancestral tendencies within the primate order or a more derived feature limited to certain taxa.

Almost half of all primate species are threatened

2010-02-18T14:15:00.000-08:00

There's a new IUCN report out on the most endangered primates. This includes the variegated spider monkey (Ateles hybridus), pictured above.

Here are the top 25 most endangered, by region:

Madagascar
Greater Bamboo Lemur (Prolemur simus)
Gray-headed Lemur (Eulemur cinereiceps)
Sclater’s Black Lemur/Blue-Eyed Black Lemur ( Eulemur flavifrons)
Northern sportive lemur (Lepilemur septentrionalis)
Silky Sifaka (Propithecus candidus)

Africa
Rondo Dwarf Galago (Galagoides rondoensis)
Roloway Guenon (Cercopithecus diana roloway)
Tana River Red Colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus)
Niger Delta Red Colobus Monkey (Procolobus epieni)
Kipunji Rungwecebus kipunji
Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli)

Asia
Siau Island Tarsier (Tarsius tumpara)
Javan Slow Loris (Nycticebus javanicus)
Simakobu or Pig-Tailed Snub-Nose Langur (Simias concolor)
Delacour’s Langur (Trachypithecus delacouri)
Golden-headed Langur or Cat Ba Langur (Trachypithecus p. poliocephalus)
Western Purple-faced Langur Trachypithecus (Semnopithecus vetulus nestor)
Grey-shanked Douc Monkey (Pygathrix cinerea)
Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus)
Eastern Black Crested Gibbon (Nomascus nasutus)
Western Hoolock Gibbon (Hoolock hoolock)
Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii)

Central and South America
Cotton-top Tamarin (Saguinus oedipus)
Variegated or Brown Spider Monkey (Ateles hybridus)
Peruvian Yellow-tailed Woolly Monkey (Oreonax flavicauda)

Fertility, Reproduction, and Women in Academia

2010-02-01T19:39:00.001-08:00

I've been away from blogging for a bit due to some computer problems (ie, my hard drive died, I was without my laptop for a week, and now I'm still trying to get all the necessary files and software re-loaded on the new hard-drive). I'm still slogging through a new course, and have scheduled my proposal defense for a few weeks from now, so I'll probably not be posting much for this month.

Anyway, there are a couple things I wanted to post about. One is some thoughts about my upcoming fieldwork, but I'll hopefully write that sometime soon. However, right now, I'm thinking of several things I've read recently, that all seem to intersect around the issue of reproduction and fertility, and how that intersects with women's lives.

First, the aol news that pops up whenever my computer signs into AIM (which it does automatically) was kind enough to inform me of a headline to the effects of "90% of women's usable eggs gone by 30." Not the most reliable source, but really not something I would like to hear, given that I definitely won't be any position to consider having kids until I'm in my 30s. Next, I read a post over at Isis the Scientist about post-docs, and a comment about how lengthening post-docs delay the start of stable academic employment (ie, a tenure-track position). Given that most of us finish graduate school in the late 20s or early 30s (or later), the timing of post-docs and attaining economic and career stability (if that every happens), is very inconveniently timed for women's lifecycles. And then, finally, I read a post at Aardvarchaeology, in which it was suggested that the best way to reduce your environmental footprint and reduce population is to not reproduce/limit how many children you have.

Anyway, all of these things are hitting me at a time when I am considering how extremely completely incongruent female biology is with an academic life. While I care deeply about the world's overpopulation crisis, I also understand, but personally, and from an anthropological perspective, how crucial motherhood, and the possibility of motherhood, is to a woman's life. It is, in many ways, what defines female-ness, it is what the female neuroendocrine system is pulling to do, and it is a deeply personal choice that effects how an individual women will define herself in relation to her family, her community, her legacy and contribution to the world. For that reason, I think it is something that must be a viable option to women, and perhaps even a right.

In my global perspectives on human health class, we discussed the issue of access to fertility treatments for women in developing in countries. On one hand, it seems counterproductive to provide these options, when our world is overpopulated. On the other hand, an article we read (this was a couple years ago, so I don't remember what it was called or too many details) described the challenges Egyptian women faced when they were unable to have children. If a women cannot have a child, it effects how her husband, family, and community perceive her, and increases the risk that her husband will divorce her to remarry a younger, more fertile women. In that perspective, I can see how access to new reproductive technology could change women's lives, and how the option to have children can be seen as a right.

That said, the situation is a bit different, politically and culturally, for women in the U.S. Nontheless, the lack of adequate maternal/paternal leave and childcare options, plus the stigmatizing effects it has on career trajectories, creates a cultural and political environment when the option to have children is stifled. It still is an option, and it's one that many women pursue, but there seems to be definite pressure against it in the US. And, most importantly, this pressure largely falls on women. While men also have to make compromises to have children, it does not affect their career prospects or earning potential in the same way, nor does it as strongly affect how individual women are perceived both academically and culturally.

Anyway, my point is, I think we should recognize the importance of children in people's lives, particularly for women. And I'm thinking about this a lot, because I would really like to have children at some point. However, when I think about how all of anthropological training and research affects how I would want raise my children, it also goes very much against my career aspirations. And while this might be less of an issue in Canada or Sweden or Denmark or any other current with greater support with healthcare, maternal leave, and childcare options, in the US, I feel it is a big concern for women in American academic careers.

Baby Mountain Gorilla

2010-01-14T09:37:00.001-08:00

Spider monkey allomothering at Zoo Basel!

2010-01-13T18:02:00.000-08:00

Zooborns has some adorable pictures with an equally-adorable story: In late December, a female spider monkey, Quilimari, gave birth to an infant, but due to birth complications, was too weak to care for her infant. However, while zoo vets cared for mom, the baby's older sister, Dicha (who is a young adult), took care of the infant. Most surprisingly, she somehow was able to nurse the baby... I wonder how long it took for her to lactate, and what hormonal processes might have triggered that... But the good news is, Dicha took good care of her little brother, and once Quilimari was well, Dicha returned the infant to her.

It's nice to hear a story like this--too often, there are stories about how an infant cannot be taken care of by the mother (due to birth complications, illness, rejection...), and in too many cases, those poor babies end up being hand-reared. It's great to hear that a competent alloparent was able to step in, and that the infant has been successfully reunited with her mom--with a great allomother nearby that is eager to help out.

Above is the picture of the infant. You can read the story and see more pictures at Zooborns: Dutiful Daughter Cares for New Baby Brother.

Some interesting reading...

2010-01-13T16:17:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of interesting stuff out there to read, and it's kind of dangerous! I intend to work on lectures, and then somehow get caught up reading blogs and news articles... So I thought I'd share them before I (hopefully) get to work on those lectures.

First, check out Fourth Stone Hearth, #84, The Gratuitous Gelada Edition, at A Primate of Modern Aspect. You really can't go wrong with interesting anthro readings, especially when there's beautiful geladas in their midst.

Next, head to the NY Times, where you can read Deciphering the Chatter of Monkeys and Chimps. I'm really exciting that some of the exciting new developments in primate vocalization research is getting this sort of media attention.

Finally, if you have a chance, head over to Time, and read Why Your DNA isn't your Destiny, for an accessible explanation of epigenetics and maternal effects.

Happy Reading!

Home is where the hearth is

2010-01-09T14:58:00.000-08:00

The presence of a hearth and organization of living space has been found in an Israeli archaeological site dated to about 790,000 ya. It's not certain who used this site--the tools are Acheulian, but no hominid skeletal material are present. It's possible that the site's users were Homo erectus or a transitional Homo species.

Nonetheless, what is exciting about this site is that these early humans controlled fire, producing a variety of tools, ate a diverse balanced diet, and came home to an organized living space. Two major activity areas were found: one was the site of the majority of flint-knapping, fish processing, and the use of chopping tools (based on the fish processing, I'd suggest that this was the place where the "dirty work" took place). At the hearth, an anthropogenic center of controlled fire, nuts were processed, and basalt and limestone-knapping occurred (as well as some flint-knapping).

What's also interesting is that plant and animal remains provide some insight into their diet and ranging patterns. While the living site was near a lake, in a fairly wet environment, there are plant materials from drier woodlands some distance away. Additionally, there several kind of nuts, including oak acorn and water chestnuts, that were probably roasted and eaten. Other plants food included the fruits of olives and white grapevine, and the leaves of wild beet and holy thistle. As for food remains, their aquatic prey included freshwater turtles and carp, while their terrestrial prey included fallow deer, elephants, and other mammals.

Overall, this site gives us a picture of what these ancient hominids ate, and how they lived. Furthermore, it provides evidence that they did control and use fire. Finally, the spatial organization, with distinct areas for different activities, suggests cognitive sophistication that would require communication between different group members and may also be reflective of a division of labor.

Furthermore, the presence of a hearth and spatial organization suggests that this wasn't just a living site, but a real "home" for the hominids that lived there--did Homo erectus have a concept of "home" that is similar to our own? Did they gather around the hearth every night to eat, work, and socialize? Picturing them doing so makes them seem even more "human-like" to me.

Although this article might be a bit dense for my students, it's short and pretty interesting, so I think I'm going to give it to them as one of their outside readings.

Reference: Spatial Organization of Hominin Activities at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel.2009. Nira Alperson-Afil, et. al, Science 326: 1677-1680.DOI: 10.1126/science.1180695

So this is the new year...

2010-01-07T16:06:00.000-08:00

Due to holiday craziness and the start of a new course, I've been behind on posting. However, in the upcoming months, I will be defending my proposal and preparing to start my dissertation research, so I'll probably be writing about that in the near future. As I work on course prep for my current course (World Prehistory), I'm also going to try to post some material related to that(hopefully that might help me with preparing my lectures!).

Anyway, Karina at Ruminations from an Aspiring Ecologist published a brief assessment of her year in review, and I was inspired to the same. Until I thought about it, I hadn't realized how much I had actually accomplished in 2009. So despite feeling like I've been a slacker for most of the year (well, since taking my comps in May), I've actually done quite a lot!

Here's my 2009 year in review:

1) Finished all my coursework!
2) Took and passed candidacy exams!
3) Had a paper on Tool Use in Spider Monkeys published in Primates!
4) Applied for 9 grants (though I was rejected from quite a few)
5) Received $22,000 in grant funding ($20,000 from Wenner-Gren, $2,000 from OSU's Alumni Grant.
6) Met the greatest guy ever :)
7) Took in a foster dog and two new kitties, as well as a little corn snake.
8) Attended 4 weddings that were a great chance to reunite and catch up with old friends.
9) Presented a poster and podium presentation at AAPA 2009.
10) Submit and receive acceptance for a poster presentation for AAPA 2010.
11) Taught 4 of my own sections of Intro to Physical Anth (ie, one per quarter, all year) with course sizes ranging from 18-70.
12) Visit two new zoos that have spider monkeys :)
13) Start this blog :)

So that's the some of the highlights of 2009. Not bad for a year that had less traveling than normal, no fieldwork, and only one conference (in the past couple years, I've been going to quite a lot of conferences). 2010 should be interesting, as I am preparing to leave for the field in May! It's pretty exciting, but also pretty scary, as I'm planning on being there for 14-15 months, and my entire dissertation depends on getting the data I need (note to spider monkeys--please cooperate with me!).

Finally, I just wanted to share this opinion piece from the NY times about The Happiest People, which Nicholas Kristof asserts are the Costa Ricans! It made me happy to think that I will be spending 15 months of my life in a happy place (albeit, a happy place where I will have limited electricity, interent access only every few months, and will be separated from my boyfriend for most of the time). Kristof attributes the happiness of Costa Rica to the lack of military, and emphasis on education and environment. That might be some of it, but I'd also argue that part of that happiness stems from the fact that there are beautiful wild spider monkeys there (as well as so many other beautiful animals, plants, and ecosystems)!

Those Fongoli chimps are at it again...

2009-12-21T11:10:00.000-08:00

I LOVE the Fongoli chimps. Now, granted, I am a bit biased, because Jill Pruetz was my master's advisor, so between her and other grad students, I have heard so much about the chimps that I feel almost like I know them. But nonetheless, individually, there's quite a few fascinating characters that are full of charm and personality, and as a group, they always seem to be stretching the limits about what we know about chimpanzees, and what we might be able to infer about our ancestors.

(Note: the picture above is by Frans Lanting and is published in National Geographic's Almost Human. I think they male pictured might be K.L., but I'm not sure).

So first, Jill and Paco Bertolani have just published an article in Paleoanthropology about behavioral responses to a savanna environment. While savanna environments present a number of stressors, the chimps utilize a number of behavioral adaptations to cope. During the dry season, they use caves to shelter themselves from the sun. During the early part of the rainy season, they take advantage of naturally forming pools to soak in. Furthermore, when the moon is full, they take advantage of that light to travel and forage (who would have thought that chimps would be night owls?). Furthermore, unlike the typical fission-fusion social organization, the Fongoli chimps travel in one large party over their huge home range.

I highly suggest checking out Jill's description of nighttime activities as well.

Furthermore, Jill and Tom LaDuke have also recently published a paper on chimpanzee understanding of fire, which is online in the American Journal of Primatology, and will be published in print in 2010. Due to human-set wildfires set for agricultural purposes, parts of the chimps home range experience burning on a seasonal basis. The chimps are able to predict the direction and movement of fires, and rather than expressing fear or stress, calmly adjust their ranging patterns to avoid it. They explain that human conceptualization of fire involves three cognitive stages:

1) Conceptualization of fire--an understanding of the properties of fire, in order to predict where it will move, which allows for maintaining close proximity to the fire
2) The ability to control fire--this includes understanding how to contain the fire, provide or deprive fuel, and possibly the ability to extinguish it
3) The ability to start a fire.

They argue that the Fongoli chimps exhibit mastery of the first stage. Furthermore, it's possibly that they may have cognitive understanding of the second stage. However, Jill notes that she doesn't think that they'll be figuring out how to start fires anytime soon.

You can read more about it here.

Finally, one of Nickel's (pictured above, with her infant Teva) hunting tools will be displayed at the Smithsonian's Hall of Human Origins, which opens in March. You can read more about it here.

Tool use in invertebrates!

2009-12-15T03:57:00.000-08:00

The veined octopus selects coconut shells, empties them, and then carries them across the sea floor to create a hiding spot. You can see it on video here. And unlike hermit crabs, they select and collect the coconut shells for later use, and when they carry them to the selected spot, they provide no protection. Seems like those octopi are planning ahead. Who would have thought octopi are so forward-thinking?

Baby spider monkey!

2009-12-12T10:01:00.000-08:00

Baby spider monkeys are pretty much the most beautiful thing in the world (at least to me). Just look at that darling face!

Read about this adorable little guy on Zooborns!

Monkeys using syntax!

2009-12-09T06:18:00.000-08:00

Check it out at Prancing Papio

I will have to read that paper when I get time. If monkeys are using syntax, it sounds like one of the hardest-to-achieve feature of language, thought to be unique to humans, is not quite as unique as we thought...

Four Stone Hearth #81

2009-12-04T12:22:00.000-08:00

Welcome to this addition of Four Stone Hearth! Sorry for getting it up a couple days late. This weeks edition has several perspectives on human evolution. Over at anthropology.net, Tim Jones follows up Turkey Day with a discussion on the archaeological evidence for bird consumption in the Middle Pleistocene. While bird consumption may have been overlooked due to a focus on larger prey items, catching prey that can fly away indicates sophisticated hunting techniques. Over at Ad Hominen, Ciarán Brewster argues that Chins do Not a Human Make; rather, the presence of a slight chin in archaic Homo, as well as the lack of a defined chin in some 'modern' Homo indicates gene flow between archaic and modern humans. So basically, the simple rule that I gave my students at the beginning of this week, "If it has a chin, it's a modern human," was apparently inaccurate.... Ooops.

Ciarán also pointed out a couple other posts to check out. Over at Gene Expression, Razib Khan discusses his thoughts on The Future of Human Evolution. Khan takes issues with Ian Tattersall's statements in National Geographic that large population size and extensive mobility makes further evolutionary change of our own species unlikely. Khan argues that, in a large population, even though fixation due to genetic drift is unlikely, more mutations arise, and selection can act more effectively. Furthermore, he argues that the mixing of different populations will not reduce variation; rather, it will result in the emergence of new genotypic combinations. At NeuroLogica, Steven Novella discusses the latest Update from Hobbiton. Steven addresses the limitations of the current evidence, the controversy over interpretations, and recent evidence, concluding that the small brain size of H. floresiensis,
"suggests that H. floresiensis specifically evolved a small brain, while retaining a rather advanced tool-making ability. This has led some to speculate that H. floresiensis had a more efficient brain design – packing more cerebral power into a smaller space."

Don't drills have beautiful rear ends? Since this week's submissions have focused on paleoanthropology and human evolution, I'm adding in a few interesting primatological posts. Beast Ape discusses primate coloration in Badge of Status in Drills. While male coloration is often though to be a result of sexual selection, particularly as a result of female choice, a recent study has found that while male coloration in drills is a badge of social status, it does not relate to female preference within a given a given rank. Over at Prancing Papio, Raymond Ho discusses recent evidence for Grandmothering in Japanese Macaques. Although the evidence is limited and anecdotal, this is one of the first published accounts in support of the Grandmother Hypothesis from nonhuman primates. I think this is important, because I suspect there's been more observations of grandmothering in primates (I'm pretty sure I've heard of it happening in rhesus macaques, and wouldn't be surprised if there were accounts from other species as well), but anecdotal evidence is unlikely to go unreported. Hopefully this paper will spur some further investigation of this behavior. Finally, for those who haven't read my second installment on tool use and cognition, I highly suggest you read Can Water be Used as a Tool?

Thanks for reading this edition of Four Stone Hearth! The next edition will be hosted by Anthropology in Practice. If you're reading this, I encourage you to submit for future editions. The submissions with this week were predominantly biological, with a focus on human evolution; furthermore, they were all submitted by male bloggers! I'd love to see some more diversity in future editions!

Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T11:06:00.000-08:00

I have very mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. As someone who does not support genocide or turkey-icide, it's hard to get excited about a holiday that seems to support both. Nonetheless, I have A LOT to be thankful for this thanksgiving, and I'm feeling quite grateful for it all.

But first, this Thanksgiving, remember the Native Americans who lost lives, land, and loved ones due to colonization and American expansion. You might want to read Rethinking Thanksgiving if you get a chance.

Next, Positively Present has some great posts on Happiness and Gratitude and The Benefits of Being Grateful.

I have a lot too be thankful for this year. I've acquired some wonderful furry friends, as well as one scaly friend, and met a wonderful guy. I've had the joy of attending four good friends' wedding in the past 5 months, and they have been wonderful reunion with old friends. I've also successfully passed my candidacy exams and have received $20,000 from Wenner-Gren, which will make my dissertation research possible. Additionally, while it's been a while since I've been able to see my spiders in the wild, I've gotten to visit captive spiders at the Como Zoo and Cleveland Zoo.

Finally, check out Orangutans at the Cleveland Zoo enjoying pumpkin!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

evolution, women in science, oxytocin, and grandmothering macaques

2009-11-25T10:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a random assortment of interesting stuff I've come across recently....

I really enjoyed this article in Newsweek about teaching evolution to children, as well as this link about how kids just "get" natural selection.

Also in Newsweek, there's a blog post entitled "Is Motherhood Keeping Good Scientists Down? How to Fix Research's 'Mommy Gap.'"

Unfortunately, it brings up a very difficult point:

"It’s not innate gender differences that hold women back (just look at this year’s Nobel Prize winners in science). It’s not even gender bias (OK, maybe a little, but that’s not the biggest problem). It’s that science is demanding and very, very competitive. No matter how family-friendly a given university is, a scientist who chooses to have a baby risks having her next big breakthrough scooped up by a competitor who chooses to spend 24/7 in the lab. Changing that will take more than a handful of policies; it will require changing the nature of the game itself. I don't think that's possible, and I'm not entirely convinced it's desirable. It’s competition, after all, that spurs innovation and advancement."

I do agree that is the problem--there will always be people that are willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING else in their lives to get ahead. Choosing to have a family means (or should mean) that you aren't willing to sacrifice that for your research or career. Furthermore, I disagree with the author here--I think changing of the nature of the game may be difficult (I have no idea if it's possible or not), but I think it would be desirable. I believe maintaining creative, insightful scientists with different live experiences and interests will spur innovation and advancement more than cutthroat, sacrifice-all competition. Any thoughts?

In other news, The New York Times has an interesting article about oxytocin. I absolutely love this quote:

"Above all, be thankful for your brain’s supply of oxytocin, the small, celebrated peptide hormone that, by the looks of it, helps lubricate our every prosocial exchange, the thousands of acts of kindness, kind-of kindness and not-as-nakedly-venal-as-I-could-have-been kindness that make human society possible."

Finally, head over to the Prancing Papio to read about Grandmothering in Japanese macaques.

Bonobo Reintroduction

2009-11-17T16:54:00.000-08:00

Kids are smarter than we give them credit for

2009-11-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

There's some really interesting advice from kids, in an interview in which they answered what they wish parent's know. You can read about it here. Overall, the younger ones want parents to remember that they need to support and attention; the older ones want parents to realize that they still need support, but also that they worry and stress about their parent's concerns. Honestly, I think they kids have figured out the important things in life: social support is essential, if you're angry, you need to remember that it hurts the people around you, and stress can be contagious.

My favorite quote though, comes from one of the youngest interviewees, Amy, age 3:

"Everyday, please, cuddles and marshmallows, please!"

I may be 25 years older, but I feel she's figured out exactly what would cheer me up. I'm going to go cuddle with my kitties and eat some (vegetarian, gelatin-free) marshmallows :)

Illiniois GAs demand a living wage

2009-11-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

Full story here

I hope they succeed in getting their demands met. It shouldn't be considered so radical for grad students to get paid enough to live on--it should be the standard everywhere. Grad students at Illinois were responsible for the majority of my undergrad education and they deserve to be adequately paid for their work. It's ridiculous how much undergrads pay for tuition (even in-state tuition) given how little of that money actually goes toward their "education."

Now if perhaps GESO at OSU could follow suite in making such demands... I would greatly appreciate it.

Baboons!

2009-11-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

There's a couple interesting posts on baboons that I wanted to link to... Raymond at the Prancio Papio has an interesting post about Behavioral Synchronization in Chacma Baboons, and Beast Ape has a post on Contagious Yawning in Geladas.

L'Empathie

2009-11-07T10:16:00.001-08:00

In French, but has some amazing footage of interspecies affection, bonding, caretaking, and helping behavior... as well as some commentary on human empathy (I think, my french isn't quite up to par)... I think it really illustrates the strength of mammalian instincts for bonding and caretaking behaviors.

Life choices, happiness, and hormones

2009-11-05T11:20:00.000-08:00

The blogs I read fall into three general categories, 1)Academic/life balance, 2) happiness and 3) behavior/endocrinology. My posts are focused on #3, and I never thought I'd write a post that incorporates all three... but I think today I will.

This post is inspired by a post by Balancing Act on Being a Real Person and a Graduate Student and Isis on the compatibility of motherhood and science. Balancing Act writes about how her life of being a real person, with a family, hobbies, and a life outside of grad school is often considered inconsistent with being a graduate student, and both Isis and her readers comment about whether having kids detracts from having a scientific career.

Academia requires a huge commitment. I remember being told by friends (that were conducting their dissertation research) the year before grad school that in this field (specifically, primatology, though this probably applies to other academic fields as well) that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a successful personal life and a successful professional life--because there are enough people willing to sacrifice everything for their professional life, and those are the people that get ahead. And back then, I hoped it wasn't true. But I do feel that for the two years before grad school (in which I did various internships and field positions), and most of grad school, I have, whether intentionally or not, had very little in the way of a life outside of grad school/primatology.

In the words of Balancing Act, I would be the traditional graduate student. During my masters, I lived alone, without pets, without a tv, and my only friends in town were fellow grad students. And I was INCREDIBLY productive. My social life consisted of going to coffee shops to study with friends, and then occasionally doing dinner or a movie after. I spent the majority of my time holed up in my apartment, sitting at my computer doing work, and in those two years, I got a hell of a lot done. And that level of productivity and constant working is probably what is expected of a typical graduate student.

Since moving to my PhD program, my level of productivity has slowly fallen. I still technically live alone, and lack a tv, but I got a cat. I started to socialize more, watch dvds more frequently, watch tv shows on hulu, and have increasingly become addicted to facebook, checking news sites, blogs, etc. In short, I've lost some of my productivity, and have become much more easily distracted. Nonetheless, I have still managed to get a lot done (though it never seems to be enough). And most importantly, I had a realization that keeping up the breakneck pace of productivity, and having absolutely no life, was making me incredibly unhappy. I want to have a successful professional life, but I've already sacrificed all of my post-undergrad life to doing work. I realized that if I kept this up my entire life, yes, I could be productive, I could probably be successful, but I'd be miserably unhappy and watch life just pass me by.

Since then, my life has changed a bit. A month before my candidacy exams (last April), I took in a foster dog, who I still have. A couple of people have voiced their opinion that I shouldn't have taken in a dog when I was studying for candidacies, because it would be a distraction--but having a dog around made me so much happier. And I started dating someone right before I took my exams (which also makes me happy). And in my post-candidacy slump, I haven't been very productive, but have been enjoying having a life for a change. I've gotten to spend more time outdoors, gone hiking and camping, and rediscovered my love of reading (for fun!) and recently, painting.

Now, in addition to my one original cat, and my foster dog, I have a second cat (a 14-year-old I took in because she desperately needed a peaceful home where she wouldn't get picked on by other cats), and my boyfriend's cat has joined my household (his other cat died, and this cat is too sociable to be alone). In addition, my boyfriend spends most of his time here when he's not at work. Not to mention I have a snake, and will probably be adding another...

So I can't comment specifically on motherhood, because I don't have children. But, it struck me that some of the comments about it was that it took time away from productivity, was exhausting, involved cleaning up bodily fluids, and sadly, at least one commenter said that it made her less of a scientist. And granted, I'm sure it does take away from productivity, must be exhausting, and requires cleaning up a lot of messes. But while pets aren't quite the same, having four of them around can be a lot of work, and I seem to be cleaning up some form of accident quite a lot, and it gets frustrating. I do seem to ask myself why I've acquired this many pets, and I know some of my fellow grad students have commented that they think I'm crazy. But the thing is, they are also incredibly rewarding. They make me happy. I have a wagging tail greeting me at the door, I go on long walks outside with a incredibly cheerful and happy dog, and I spend time cuddling with sweet, purring kitties who are incredibly affectionate. I'm much happier than I used to be, and I think a lot of that comes from the oyxtocin rush I get from having a relationship with these wonderful (though at times, challenging) animals, and all the daily contact and cuddles i get (granted, having a boyfriend now also probably contributes to that).

And so I assume that children have some of those same benefits. Yes, I have no doubt that they are an incredibly amount of work, and probably drive you crazy, and I'm not sure how parents handle the sleep deprivation. But still, just like my cute doggy and kitties, babies have evolved these incredibly appealing characteristics that tap into our hormonal caregiving systems and elicit not only caregiving behaviors, but also a hormonal rush of contentment and connectedness. And I'm sure as they get older, they continue to demonstrate some of the amazing features of being unique human beings, while providing their parents with love and affection.

As an anthropologist, I feel it's easy to see how having kids would in some ways contribute to your scientific ideas. Just thinking about the balance women face between juggling children and work has fueled a lot of interesting questions in my mind, and I think in the future I'd really like to study maternal investment/trade-offs and the underlying endocrinology. And even though I don't study canids or felids, I still think having my pets contributes to my thinking about the questions I study, particularly as I watch their interactions, and their clamoring for affection and attention. My research is on social relationships and stress, and so more than anything, that extensive studying I did for my candidacy exams drummed into my head the importance for humans, and other social animals, of having strong social connections, and the health benefits it provides, both mentally and physically.

While I think one path to being a good scientist might be locking yourself away in the lab, the office, or a remote field location and devoting your life wholesale to your research, I also think having a life of your own can contribute to being a good scientist. By living a full life, complete with social relationships, pets, kids, and hobbies, I think you engage with many of the same aspects of the world that inspired us to become scientists. Most of us didn't fall in love with learning or science because it meant shutting us from the rest of the world--we fell in love with it because we watched the world around us, and were fascinating with how things work, and why wanted to know how and why. And by continuing to engage with the world, and our lives, we maintain that sense of curiosity and wonder we used to have. I believe that engagement can fuel our scientific imaginations and lead us to knew insights and directions to explore in our research. And in doing so, we'll also get those dopamine rushes from learning and action, and those oxytocin rushes from connection with others, and be able to feel happy and fulfilled as we go about doing great science.

Hormone that affects finger length key to social behavior

2009-11-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

Here's a really interesting press release on an article being published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology...

Hormone that affects finger length key to social behavior

The hormones, called androgens, are important in the development of masculine characteristics such as aggression and strength. It is also thought that prenatal androgens affect finger length during development in the womb. High levels of androgens, such as testosterone, increase the length of the fourth finger in comparison to the second finger. Scientists used finger ratios as an indicator of the levels of exposure to the hormone and compared this data with social behaviour in primate groups.

The team found that Old World monkeys, such as baboons and rhesus macaques, have a longer fourth finger in comparison to the second finger, which suggests that they have been exposed to high levels of prenatal androgens. These species tend to be highly competitive and promiscuous, which suggests that exposure to a lot of androgens before birth could be linked to the expression of this behaviour.

Other species, such as gibbons and many New World species, have digit ratios that suggest low levels of prenatal androgen exposure. These species were monogamous and less competitive than Old World monkeys.

The results show that Great Apes, such as orang-utans and chimpanzees, expressed a different finger ratio. The analysis suggests that early androgen exposure is lower in this groups compared to Old World monkeys. Lower androgen levels could help explain why Great Apes show high levels of male cooperation and tolerance.

Emma Nelson, from the University of Liverpool's School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, explains: "It is thought that prenatal androgens affect the genes responsible for the development of fingers, toes and the reproductive system. High androgen levels from a foetus or mother during pregnancy, may alter gene function and lead to subtle changes in relative digit length and the functioning of the reproductive system. Finger ratios do not change very much after birth and appear to tell us something about how very early androgens affect adult behaviour, particularly behaviour linked to mating and reproduction."

Dr Susanne Shultz, from the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford, said: "Humans are unique in that they live in large multi-male, multi-female groups, but maintain strong bonds and show high levels of group cooperation in both males and females. In most other species males are competitive rather than co-operative. Research from finger ratios may help us understand more clearly the development of human sociality and its evolutionary origins."

###

This research, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is supported by the British Academy Centenary Research Project, Lucy to Language - a multi-disciplinary project that aims to understand the complexities of human social evolution.

In Defense of Anthropomorphism

2009-11-02T13:38:00.000-08:00

Is it really anthropomorphic to to apply human emotions and motivations to behaviors in anthropoid (ie, human-like) primates? What about non-anthropoid (ie, prosimian) primates? Non-primate mammals? Where should we be drawing the line? Which is the worst "sin" in science, using anthropomorphic reasoning to attribute certain emotions/motivations/meanings to animal behavior, or to use anthropocentric reasoning to deny commonalities in our behavior and that of other animals?

This is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about, and I'm definitely a primatologist who prefers to err on the side of anthropomorphism rather than anthropocentrism. But the inspiration of this post came from some discussions I read a while back on ScienceBlogs, where a call for photographs of animals "kissing" (to be used in a book on the evolution of kissing), drew some irate responses insisting that referring to such images as "kissing" was anthropomorphic, inappropriate, unscientific.

Anthropomorphism can be problematic, particularly if it is applied without careful consideration of the species, the behavior, and the underlying neuroendrocine mechanisms in question. However, in most of western science, an inaccurate anthropocentric view, based on some of the mistakes of western philosophy (particularly due to Descartes's mistaken belief that animal were mere automatons that did not truly feel), which in turn were rooted in western religious distinctions between humans and animals, have in some ways hampered animal behavior research. For example, in Japan, where the human/animal dichotomy was not present in cultural perceptions, recognizing individual monkeys as unique actors embedded in a social network resulted in insights into social behavior and relationships that took much longer to recognize in western science.

Darwin challenges this human/animal dichotomy; one of his lesser known books was on the commonality of expressions and emotions in humans and other animals. However, even within Darwinian science, a focus on objective, dispassionate science, combined with biases regarding human uniqueness, have often fostered a very anthropocentric viewpoint. Jane Goodall challenged one aspect of this standpoint, by giving her focal subjects names instead of numbers, and by being willing to vocally defend this. Nonetheless, a few years ago, when I was a field assistant working on research on Cayo Santiago (an island off of Puerto Rico with free-ranging rhesus macaques), where all the monkeys were assigned numbers, the naming vs. numbers debate still seemed to active among researchers (personally, I felt that learning names in conjunction with traits helped me to learn the monkeys faster).

"We scientists are privy to a rare and precious opportunity when we come to know intimately nonhuman animals living in their own worlds. We have a responsibility to these animals to show other people who they really are--sentient beings who matter to one another, living lives as full of drama and emotion and poetry as our own. To perceive the planet as populated with billions of such creatures staggers the imagination, but it is true, and if we want the world of the future to retain this richness, we need to become ever more conscious of this reality before it is too late." --Barbara Smuts

I'm lucky that I've been inspired by great primatologists who do not shy away from anthropomorphism. Barbara Smut's quote reminds me that as someone who has the privilege to get to intimately known animal's lives, I have an obligation to share the beauty of their complex social world, including relationships, emotions, triumphs, and tragedies, with the rest of the human world. And I'm lucky that Jill, my master's advisor, recognizes the commonality between human and primate lives, and takes what could be cosnidered a fairly anthropomorphic view--which in turn, I believe, has helped facilitated her research (you can read more about her and her research, as well as some of the issues with anthropomorphism issue in the National Geographic article Almost Human).

Basically, if you are unwilling to attribute human-like emotion or motivation to primates' (and other animals') behavior, you might miss out on a lot of some of the most interesting aspects of primate behavior. The use of planning in tool use, creative innovation, the strengths of social bonds and attachments, deception, manipulation, grief... all of these things that require recognizing these commonalities. And aside from missing so much, if we avoid being anthropomorphic, sometimes we avoid being parsimonious as well. For animals that are so closely related to us, that share the same neural architecture that govern emotions, and the same neurotransmitters and hormones, it's puzzling to assume a huge emotional gulf. And furthermore, if we assume that fundamental disconnect, than we must also assume that our own neuroendocrine mechanisms and neural architecture evolved independently of our closely relatives--and I have my doubts that many scientists truly do that. Most of the biomedical research carried out on other animals including primates as well as other mammals (especially rats), is based on the assumption that we share these qualities as a result of our shared evolutionary past. Thus, to assume that we cannot share the same emotions/motivations requires simultaneously, unquestioningly, holding two conflicting viewpoints (which humans seem to be proficient at doing).

Clearly, I'm coming down on the side of advocating anthropocentrism rather than anthropocentrism. Nonetheless, this does not mean that I advocate careless anthropocentrism. Rather, I believe we should use reasoned anthropocentrism in interpretating primate behavior (as well as other animal's behavior). Instead, I think we need to carefully consider the behaviors, in terms of its operational definition, the underlying neuroendocrine mechanisms, and its proximate functions. For example, in considering a picture we might see of animals kissing, we might want to consider to following questions:

1) Does the behavior fit the operational definitions we would use for a corresponding human behavior?

*ie, two individuals pressing each others lips together, or one individual pressing their lips against another individual's skin.

2) What are the assumed functions/motivations of the behavior?

*ie, in humans, we assume that a kiss is an expression of love and affection, and a sign/mechanism of social bonding.

3) What are the underlying physiological mechanisms?

*ie, in humans, the actions of oxytocin are thought to underly expressions of love and affection, and facilitate social bonding.

4) Does this species share the same physiological mechanism?

*other mammals share the same hormone, and it fulfills the same function--most of our understanding of this hormone is due to research conducted in rodents.

5) If we assume a commonality in intention/motivation, is it consistent with the social structure/organization/behavior of these species? Are there possible alternate explanations?

*If we are looking at a species in which social bonds are important, this would support the assumption that the "kiss" behavior may be fulfilling this function. If ware looking at a species that does not form strong social bonds, then we should consider the possibility that this is NOT a homologous behavior. Furthermore, if there is a possibility that this behavior may be the result of other mechanism (ie, it could potentially be two unfamiliar individuals sniffing each other to gain olfactory information, if it could potentially be one individual preparing to bite the other individual, etc.)

Essentially, when we look at behavior, and we try to infer motivations/intentions, we really need to use the same process we would use in determining if certain anatomical features are similar as a result of homology (ie, similar due to common ancestry), or analogy (ie, similar due to common function, but arose independently).

If we look at many of the behaviors we see in primates (as well as many other animals, particularly other mammals) what is termed "anthropomorphism" is often an interpretation based on assumptions of homology.

Sarah Hrdy

2009-10-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

Sarah Hrdy is one of my major heroes. She's developed some of the most fundamental (and controversial) theories in anthropology, has examined anthropological theory through the lens of feminism, unapologetically calls herself a sociobiologist, and seamlessly ties primatological research to understanding human behavior and evolution. In addition, she also writes fantastic books and articles. So here are a couple links to some great material: the first is a Discover article about her, the second is a recent article published in Natural History, entitled "Meet the Alloparents," which discusses some of topics addressed in her recent book, Mothers and Others.

The Hardy Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

Meet the Alloparents

Orangutan Tool Use

2009-10-20T10:42:00.001-07:00

While I still would like to write more about tool use in the future, for now, I'll just leave you with a short little video showing some of my friend Kristina's dissertation research...

2009-10-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

Chimps display Humanlike Good Will

It's always interesting reading the headlines making broad statements whether chimps are selfish and thus unlike humans, or that chimps are altruistic and thus like humans.

Anyone consider that humans are both selfish and altruistic in a variety of different contexts, and that BOTH can be considered "human-like?" And for that matter, why not consider altruism "vampire-bat-like?"

Nonetheless, I like seeing headlines like this, if only because they negate the idea that chimpanzees are fundamentally selfish, and thus un-human-like, while humans are supposedly graciously altruistic. And it does have video footage, which is always fun :)

Send GrrlScientist to Antarctica

2009-09-08T12:20:00.001-07:00

I know that I have a readership of probably about two, but if you can, check out GrrlScientist's blog
and vote for her to be the official blogger on a Quark Expeditions trip to Antarctica! You can read about her entry and vote here.

Personality, hormones, and attraction

2009-09-08T00:29:00.001-07:00

Thanks to my insomnia, I've discovered an awesome website that has podcasts of interviews with authors whose books are related to psychology. I've just listened to interviews with two biological anthropologists, Meredith Small and Helen Fisher, and right now, Fisher's interview has me thinking. While I would have initially dismissed her book (entitled Why Him, Why Her? Finding Real Love by Personality Type) as a cheesy self-help sort of book, now I'm absolutely fascinated and want to read it. Basically, she studies the evolution of attraction and love, and her current research (in conjunction with match.com--which sounds far more lucrative than the prospects for most biological anthropologists) involves four different personality types that are supposed to be associated with hormones/neurotransmitters. "Explorers" are curious and adventurous and associated with dopamine, "Builders" are traditional and reliable and associated with serotonin, "Directors" are analytical, competitive, and associated with testosterone, and "Negotiators" are passionate and altruistic and associated with estrogen (just from the basic descriptions I knew I would fit into this category, and subsequently taking the questionnaire has confirmed that I am primarily a Negotiator and secondarily an Explorer). According to her interview, Explorers are most compatible with Explorers, Builders are most compatible with Builders, and Directors are most compatible with Negotiators and vice versa.

While this is an interesting concept, and I'm really interested to read her book and read more about her book, thus far I feel it sounds a bit to simplistic, and there's a few things about it that seem problematic. However, it's possible that these will be addressed in her book, so I should reserve final judgement until I've read it. Nonetheless, they seem like some pretty big concerns. First, these categories are based on temperment, and from the interview I get the impression they are based on people's "nature" (ie, what you're born with). She mentions genetics quite a few times in the interview, so I get the impression that genetics is thought to be the underlying basis--however, she does also talk about digit ratio and hormones in the womb, thus it sounds like environmental effects, at least prenatally, are thought to shape these temperments as well. Nonetheless, while the broad personality groups make sense, their linkage with hormones seems rather confusing and counter-intuitive to me. While I could understand that certain genes are associated with increased levels of secretion of particular hormones, and that both that and hormonal fetal environment play an important role in shaping temperm ent/personality/the individual, the focus on four hormones, particularly two dominant sex hormones, seems simplistic and problematic. While these four are some of the most well-studied hormones/neurotransmitters, they're just four of very, very many. What about norepinephrine, vasopressin, oxytocin, progesterone and cortisol? And nevermind that I'm just mentioning the neurotransmitters and hormones I'm most familiar with--we have tons more. Furthermore, are the effects set by birth, or can they fluctuate? If these inclinations are based on prenatal influences on the brain (which makes the most sense to me), than they should be set by birth, and relatively impermeable to environmental influences throughout life. However, if they are influenced by these hormones throughout life, than a) we would expect a lot of fluctuation, and b) medications such as antidepressants and birth control would alter individual's inclinations. I remember reading an article by her (it's on her website) about the risks of antidepressants jeopardizing attraction, love, and relationships, which suggests that this is a concern--however, I read it a while ago, so I don't quite remember what the specifics were.

While she says that both men and women can be negotiators and directors (as an example, Bill Clinton is characterized as an estrogen-associated Negotiator, while Hillary Clinton is characterized as a testosterone-asssociated Director) it also seems problematic that two of the major categories are tied so closely to major sex hormones.

The other question I have is how these categories, and this concept, relates to attraction. The impression I get is that these categories suggest long-term compatibility, but I wonder how well they relate to attraction. Are people attracted to the categories they "should" be attracted to, or are people often attracted to the "wrong" (ie, less compatible) type? My hunch is that they are. How do these categories fit/conflict with research on attraction that has examined the role of MHCs (ie, the t-shirt sniffing studies) and aspects like symmetry, eye-distance, and hand proportions (all of which have been implicated in influencing attraction). Do these biochemically-related personality types actually relate to the "chemistry" (or, as I think is more accurate, the magic) of attraction?

Finally, I also seem some commonalities between these personality types and other personality measures, such as the Myers-Brigg (ie, the one with categories such as INFJ), and the Big Five (which I remember by the acronym OCEAN from my Personality Psych class many years ago--stands for Openness, Conscientiousness Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism). The Myers-Brigg categories relate to 4 of the Big 5, with Neuroticism excluded, and I can see connections between Openness and Explorers, Conscientiousness and Builders, and Agreeableness and Negotiators. However, I also think Extraversion might relate better to Explorer-tendencies than Director-tendencies.

Nonetheless, I see some potential for an interesting read, and I hope she addresses my questions in the book. I'd also be interested to see if she how certain temperments have tendencies toward certain attraction/relationship patterns associated with the dominant hormones (ie, I would think Explorers would fall in love, or at least infatuation, quite easy, that Builders would be most adept at building steady, committed relationships, etc.)

Anyway, his fascinates me because it both taps into my nerdy interests in hormones and behavior, and is a topic that is interesting and applies to everyone's lifves. This is what I love about bio anthro--it helps us understand ourselves, our lives, and the people around us (which is what I try to impart on my students)! You can check out more about Helen Fisher and these ideas at website or the podcast.

And in other news, here's a link to an interesting blog post about voles, oxytocin, and nurturing behavior .

Stay tuned for more updates eventually--I still plan on adding more about tools and cognition at some point, and also intend on writing a post about anthromorphism sometime soon...

Tool use and cognition, Part 2: Can water be a tool?

2009-08-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

I promised that there would be actually spider monkey tales in here...

When I was studying the spider monkeys at Brookfield Zoo (summer 2007), Rita, the youngest of the group, did something really fascinating. She was trying to reach a food item (some kinda of leafy vegetable) that had fallen into the tapir's pool. So, using her spider monkey assets, she did what any spider would do: Anchor her tail to a support, and swing out to try to reach it. However, despite that long tail and long arms, and several swinging attempts, she could not reach out. Looking frustrated, she gave up. She sat there, gazing at the pool and the leaf for a couple minutes. And then, she got up, went to another spot closer to the leaf (that lacked supports for tail-anchoring). She was still to far to reach it, but she paddled the water, floating the leaf closer until she could pick it up and reach it.

Regardless of what to call it, this was a fascinating example of problem-solving. But, it got me thinking of whether manipulating water could be consider tool use. If water can be considered a detached object, it would meet the definition for tool use. But, given the weird and amorphous properties of water... I'm really not sure.

However, there's a couple studies that have specifically looked at water as a tool. In Raising the Level: Orangutans use Water as a Tool, Mendes, Hanus, and Call specifically investigate the use of water as a tool, and the orangs utilize water to float a peanut to the top of a tube. Similarly, in Rooks use Stones to Raise the Water Level to Reach a Floating Worm, Bird and Emery provide use inspiration from Aesop's fable "The Crow and the Pitcher," testing whether rooks can use stones to float a worm to the top of the container. The result is that rooks quickly figure out that they need to add stones to access the worm. You can watch these trials here, thanks to YouTube.

Based on these studies, it sounds like water does qualify as a tool. Furthermore, it really is a more impressive tool, since the animals need to understand water's properties. While the orang and rook studies involve using water to float and object to the top, it would be really interesting to see some studies that investigate the use of water to move an object horizontally closer, the way that Rita got the leaf. And perhaps we should being doing more of these cognitive studies with spider monkeys, so they can show off how smart they are :)

This is "Science" news?

2009-08-15T17:10:00.000-07:00

The headlines (and the articles themselves) at LiveScience are so absurd some times, I have to wonder... If this is labelled as science news, no wonder so many Americans are skeptical of science.... at the fact that this can pass as science journalism is a testament to the fact that science education in our country is truly poor...

Mermaid Sightings Claimed in Israel

Facebook Can Insight Jealousy

High-fat Diets Make You Stupid and Lazy

Men Not Choosy in One-night Stands

Great student quote...

2009-08-09T14:02:00.000-07:00

From one of my student papers, about an article by Barbara Smuts on male-female friendships in baboons...

"The article was very clear and not confusing, other than why someone would want to spend every day for 16 months watching baboons in Kenya."

Umm... my answer would probably be 1)because they are terrestrial and easy to see and follow and 2) because they're feces are WAY easier to collect. But I guess that doesn't apply to that study, considering that she wasn't collecting fecals, and probably wouldn't make any more sense to my student... I guess they just think that following monkeys around all day is weird... perhaps I need to remind students that watching monkeys is much like watching reality TV... only less cheesy and more scientifically important :)

Tool use and cognition, Part 1: Thumbs not required

2009-08-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

In my Anth 200 class, I have my students read an article by Craig Stanford entitled "Got Culture." It's from his book Significant Others (2001) so after 8 years, obviously there's been a lot more research that's come out on culture and tool use among animals. But he brings up one question:

"If tool use and other cultural innovations can be so valuable to chimpanzees, why have they not arisen more widely among primates and other big-brained animals?" He later concludes, "So to be a cultural animal, it is not enough to be big-brained. You must have the anatomical prerequisites for tool cultures to develop. Even if these are in place, there is no guarantee that a species will generate a subsistence culture in the form of tools."

I would disagree. As I caution my students, since this article was written, a lot more reports of tool use have come about, in a variety of animals. Furthermore, a lot of them lack the anatomical prerequisites (dexterous fingers, grasping hands, opposable thumbs). Tool use has been observed in elephants (which do have a dexterous trunk, with finger-like appendages), crows (which use their beaks to hold tools), dolphins (who once again, use their "beaks"), and spider monkeys (who have a reduced thumb that is pretty much just a little stub).

So why don't we see tool use more often among other large-brained animals? I suspect that first, it has a lot to do with a) observation time, and b) what we're looking for. Chimpanzees are incredibly well-studied in the wild, as compared to a lot of other species. Furthermore, observations of tool use among orangutans, bonobos, and gorillas were not made until well-after long-term studies had been initiated. Thus, it might take a lot of time to catch these observations, particularly if it's rare behavior. Additionally, if you're not looking for and expecting tool use, you might miss it. In the first field study conducted on spider monkeys back in the 1930s, Carpenter (1935) observed that spider monkeys engaged in directed branch-dropping at observers. This does fulfill the classic definition later articulated by Beck (1980):

‘‘the external employment of an unattached environmental object to alter more efficiently the form, position, or condition of another object, another organism, or the user itself when the user holds or carries the tool during or just prior to use and is responsible for the proper and effective orientation of the tool."

However, this behavior has gone overlooked, and there's some debate whether it counts as tool use. The question is whether it is intentional and directed: personally, given my own experiences nearly being concussed by a branch dropped/thrown by a spider monkey (thanks to one of my field school students last summer, I was warned just in time), I suspect it is--but conclusively demonstrating intentionality and directedness is tough to do. Furthermore, there is even one paper in which an author argues that when capuchins branch-drop, it is directed and intentional, but when spider monkeys or howler monkeys do it, it's not. But clearly, that sounds like a very capuchin-centric double-standard. Furthermore, behaviors like fur-rubbing don't seem to even be included in reports of tool use, even though they also fit that definition (and once again, could be subject to debate).

I think this is because, if a chimpanzee does something with an unattached object, it's more likely to be accepted as tool use. If another animal uses it (especially if it's not an ape or capuchin), it's likely to be questioned--is that really tool use? or should it be classified as object use, or substrate manipulation? Is it really intentional and directed? Do they understand what they are doing? Does it count if they use a tool to modify an aspect of themselves, other individuals, or an "object" such as "water" or "vocalizations?" While all of these are important questions, it's important that we apply the same criteria to evaluating if a behavior meets the definition of tool use. And I think, if researchers studying animals were looking for, or at least considering, that certain behaviors may be tool use, or cultural traditions, they may be more likely to actually take note of them and document them as such. While we still need to be exploring whether the behavior is intentional and directed, and whether the animals understand the properties of what they are using, that doesn't mean we should discount such observations, or reclassify them under another definition (unless, of course, they don't meet the standard criteria).

Anyway, I will write more on this subject later on. But for now, here's a few links and references:

Orangutans use leaves as a tool to modify their vocalizations

Cultural transmission of tool use in bottlenose dolphins

And of course, our recent paper on tool use in spider monkeys . . . You can read the media interpretation here, or read the paper itself:

Lindshield, SL, Rodrigues, MA. 2009. Tool use in wild spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi). Primates 50(3): 269-272.

Welcome to my Blog!

2009-08-08T15:36:00.001-07:00

I wanted MonkeyTales, but apparently that was taken. So SpiderMonkeyTales it is!