Ring-tailed lemurs have a very strict dominance hierarchy that regulates most aspects of their lives. Before working with lemurs I was used to primate species where dominance either wasn't all that important or wasn't reinforced on a minute-by-minute basis, like in the ring-taileds. For the RTL's, your place in the pecking order determines when and what kind of food you get to eat, who you can be next to, how often you're groomed, and who will help your baby out when it gets into a pinch. A RTL won't ususally give up the chance to exert her dominance, whether it's by giving a nasty look, making someone get up from their comfy spot, or by smacking them around. Female RTL's like to make sure everyone knows their place. And that they stay there.
The past 2 months I've had 2 teams of people watching different groups
of lemurs. It's been great being able to monitor 2 groups at once and
collect twice as much data during this period of development. The kids
are really exploring, eating tons on their own, and are incredibly
independent. I wasn't expecting this level of independence so soon in
their lives. It's great. They're like real lemurs now. Just tiny
versions.
Mortality from this birth cohort is low so far. However, we're coming
to the time of the year when a lot of babies start disappearing. I
just lost another of my 1 year olds, which isn't so good. Last year's
birth cohort now has over 80% mortality. Tough times in lemur land.
We're also collecting more fecal samples than I know what to do with.
We'll have well over 3000 fecal samples by the time we wrap things up.
We're just too good at it now. This is actually more than I have
supplies to collect it with, so we will end up getting creative for
ways to store all of these fecal samples so we can get them back for
hormone analysis.
A little note about my field assistants. They are awesome. Incredible,
and I'm really lucky to have them around. They have been collecting
incredible amounts of data, make me laugh constantly and only complain
softly at the amount of beans and rice that they're eating. The Beza
Ecological Monitoring Team has been great and without them things
wouldn't be going as smoothly as they have been. I've been fortunate
in all of the people who I've worked with so far and hope that I can
continue working with them all.
I've been here for a little over a week now. Originally the plan was
to come into Tulear for a couple of days, see my friend J defend his
PhD dissertation (he did a great job -- highest honors) and then roll
back to Beza with another researcher who will be there for 3 weeks or
so.
This was the plan. It's not how it happened.
Ay and I came out with another research team just before New Year's
eve. We left C & P back at Beza -- P is leaving in the next 2 weeks
and they are on their way out today for a little holiday before he
returns home to the UK and C comes back to the lonely life in a tent
(sorry C -- we've all been there).
We left with M&F's research team -- they had finished up all of their
work early and were going for a little holiday at Anakao, a small
fishing village with some nice resorts on the west coast (not too far
from us). They were really generous letting us tag along in the car so
we could get Ay to the dentist (and I got an unplanned trip to the
beach!). We had a great NYE dinner and rang in the new year at one of
the bars down the beach, dancing and drinking THB. It was pretty great
and a welcome change of pace from beans & rice and forest life.
And Ay came down with a nasty toothache. It was bad enough that he
wanted to come to Tulear to see a dentist. This must have been bad,
because i know I wasn't so excited at the idea of a Tulear dentist
poking around in my mouth. So, because of Ay's bum tooth, we ended up
leaving Beza and having a short beach break before coming back to
Tulear.
On the way to Tulear from the beach though we broke an axle on the
Landcruiser. Woops. This didn't make anyone so happy because it meant
we had to stay a night in Betioky (not that bad, and in a hotel that
was nicer than the others I've seen. However, use the word 'nicer' in
its most general and comparative context). Since the car was FUBARd we
had to find a new ride to Tulear that could fit 7 people and their
gear. This ended up being a tiny Peugot truck with most of us piled
into the bed for the drive from Betioky to Tulear. It wasn't a bad
ride in the back and since we had benches to sit on and a relatively
large amount of room (compared to the taxi-brousse), we got to Tulear
in style.
We got Ay to a dentist that actually wasn't so scary. Gloves, masks,
and the appearance of sterilization. He even had the dentist's
standard giant mouth/tooth models and huge toothbrush (I know I felt
comforted). Luckily there wasn't anything wrong with his tooth--
dentist thought he had food stuck between his teeth. The dentist told
him to brush better, gave him some mouthwash and sent us on our way.
By this time we had been in Tulear for a few days. J's defense was set
to be the next day, so we had some time to kill. The hotel we've been
staying at has wifi, so this isn't too hard for those of us who don't
get to check email/facebook/wikipedia/internets all that often. This
is also prime movie and tv show watching time for Ay & I.
I was supposed to head out yesterday, but our car wasn't ready. Then
it was leaving today at 7. Nope. Not happening. In fact we have a new
car coming from Tana today, which hopefully will be able to take N & I
back to Beza tomorrow. I hope so. I'm getting tired of Tulear. It's
time to get back to my tent. It's been nice to have relaxing and tasty
meals with good people, see a colleague accomplish his goal, celebrate
with cold beer, and check back in with the world and loved ones, but
it's time to get back to the babies, poo collection, and unfortunately
the wasps that have started to come out.
I was sitting on the cement floor of the thatched shade structure in
camp and saw his mom lie down just behind me. I heard a lemur walking
up behind me, then saw a tail out of the corner or my eye. He decided
to slink underneath my legs, and up against my calf like a cat and
then sit down between my shoes. His hands were on my shoe and he sat
and stared up at me for a few minutes. He just wanted to hang out I
guess. After a little while he went under the other leg and walked
over to check out what his mom was doing and hopefully get some milk.
After getting denied a prime nursing opportunity he came back to me,
stood up on his back legs, put his hands on my arm and gave me a
pleading look.
This made my day. I think it's the closest that I'll get to have one
of the babies crawl into my lap, but I'll take it. Man, habituation is
great.
The noise that they make is amazing -- they are so loud that I can't
hear my watch beep to tell me to collect data. They have been on every
tree, Flying randomly, ricocheting off of the tree trunk, us, each
other. One of their more pleasant aspects is that they pee when they
take off, so at any given moment if you kick up a bunch of cicadas you
are rewarded with a lovely bug misting. Just make sure you keep your
lips closed.
The upside is that everything is eating them. The birds, lemurs, and
people. The crested drongos snatch the little beasts off of trunks or
in mid-flight then make off with the angry cicada. It's great to hear
the enraged cicada, buzzing for its life gradually get softer as the
drongo flies away to land on a branch and eviscerate it. On the whole,
the lemurs are pretty bad at catching cicadas. The really good ones
watch a cicada fly off and land and then POUNCE on it. The bad ones
would just grab impotently at flying bugs and come up empty handed.
Some groups are better at catching them than others, and the groups
that live in the center of the reserve (prime cicada territory from
what I can tell) are the best at it.
The people may be the most entertaining to watch catch cicadas. They
started in small groups of 3-4 people, spearing the cicadas (one
advantage of always carrying a spear), pulling off their wings, and
dropping them into a bucket. When the cicadas finally emerged in huge
numbers groups of almost 15 people were wandering the forest, hunting
for this noisy, pork-rind tasting delicacy. Most of the people weren't
sure about what to do when they saw us in the forest -- do they run or
do they carry on with their business all nonchalant-like. Since I'm
pretty sure they aren't supposed to be hunting anything in the
reserve, the smaller groups ran away, but the bigger groups of teenage
boys just seemed to be too cool for school and would wander on by,
check out what we were doing, spear another cicada and move along.
But, bigger news is that fieldwork is halfway done! It alternately
feels like time is flying by and that I don't have enough time to get
things done and that the next 5 months will be a long haul. In terms
of the ease of research, we're definitely coming into the more
difficult aspect of data collection. The infants are hopping all over
the place, putting things in their mouth, eating, spitting things off,
running running running and playing around. They're incredibly cute,
but as C would say, completely head wrecking. Watching mothers has now
turned into watching 2 animals at once so that you can keep track of
what the kid is doing too. We're also coming up on the beginning of
the rainy season, so it means hot and humid, as well as wasps. But,
the leaves on the trees are coming back, so it's getting easier to
identify the sticks that the lemurs have been chewing the buds off of.
Beza feels like home -- or as close to home camping/pit
latrines/sifaka hopping by your window actually can feel. When people
come through it feels like strangers are now in my kitchen, living
room, and bed room all at once. Not a few times have C and I looked at
each other with indignation when a new group of tourists rolls through
and deposits their bags and cigarette butts all over the place. In the
last group a very well meaning, and by far the nicest French tourist
thus far asked if we got exicted to see all of the vazaha come
through. I was forced to deflect the question into something less
controversial (like what time are you leaving in the morning?) rather
than answer her question with an honest 'no'. I'm still not totally
down with the amount of squatting life entails here, or that there are
more buckets in my life now than probably ever before, but, it's still
homey.
It is also incredibly surreal to be living here all of the time. This
happens most often when sitting at the table eating lunch. Orange
group will come through the house and all you can see are black and
white tails floating by the edge of the table. Occasionally when you
look over you see one of the females sprawled on the tile floor like a
dog trying to get cool, or maybe the face of 300 poking out from
around the corner in one of the bedrooms. Sometimes I have company
during lunch -- Bumps will come and sit on the edge of the table or
perched on a chair to watch me, see what I'm eating, see if it's
something she's interested in, and maybe just hang out for awhile.
Having lemurs on your table/in your kitchen/bedroom is a much
different experience then, say, some baboons or vervet monkeys. The
lemurs don't get too pushy, aggressive, or poop on everything when
they're in the house . This is a courtesy that can't really be said
for the monkeys.
Another surreal lemur moment came when I was sitting on the floor of
my tent and heard a low growl. When I looked up all I could see was a
disembodied sifaka face looking in and then hopping by. The animal
life definitely keeps us amused.
So 5.5 months down and 5 more to go. Future highlights include a
second visit by M & F's research team in December and J's dissertation
defense in January. With my research team doubling in size, I'm sure
there will be new adventures to be had, new animals to be caught, and
intrepid stories of wasp stings to be relayed. I'm looking forward to
it all.
So, who's coming next? Email to make your reservation. Time is flying
by, so you better get down here.
On our day off 2 weeks ago we saw 171 (in orange) appear with a baby
after not having one 2 hours earlier when we previously had seen her.
Then, 10 minutes later we saw her eating the placenta. Really chowing
down on it (this is the norm for mammals -- most humans are the weird
ones in that we don't take advantage of this giant protein source.
Some people do eat it and others have placenta parties to share it
with their friends. That being said, I'm not lining up for placenta
bits at the salad bar). That means that the baby was probably less
than an hour old and we saw a brand spanking new kid.
The best, however, was just a couple of days later when we were out
looking for green group. C & I split up when searching out the groups
-- especially now since they're moving their ranges a bit to take
advantage of a new tree that's flowering. I ran into yellow on the
way, and saw 155 acting strangely. She just couldn't get comfortable
and wasn't foraging with the rest of the group. She would get up, turn
around, sit down. Move a meter, sit down. Groom her vulva, get up,
turn around, sit down. No matter what she did, she just couldn't find
a good spot.
Finally I looked up and saw her vulva pulsating a bit. It'd extend
outward and then 155 would get up and turn around again. This is when
I realized that she was going to have her baby. Now. 20 meters up in
the tree. I started calling for C (we have a system of hoots -- 1
hoot- I found lemurs, 2 hoots- where the crap are you, 3
hoots/constant screaming - help). So here I am, thinking that C was
going to kill me if I saw the birth and didn't get her (she was just
talking about how cool it would be to see a baby being born, which I
didn't think would happen since most primate babies are born at night.
Turns out, not so much here).
Anyhow, so I'm hooting constantly (C was wondering what was going on
-- but she stopped to watch a yellow-billed kite) and staring at this
lemur at the top of the tree. By this time 155 has found a seat and
has her tail tucked under her bum and out in front of herself. I can
see her vulva push out and then she grooms herself. Push, groom, Push,
groom. Push -- and head appears (and some goo drips down from the tree
-- I made sure not to stand directly below her). The kid comes out
face up and she gives another push and it slides right out into her
not-so-nimble hands and she scoops it into her belly where it
immediately begins to crawl up. 155 starts grooming her new baby and
herself a little and 10 minutes later is off foraging for flowers.
Done and done. Baby. Check. It's a girl, by the way.
Everyone wants to be near the babies, groom the babies, try to steal a
baby and carry it, etc. The baby stealing is a little difficult in
lemurs since they can't really grab onto the kid. The getting on and
off of mom is mostly dependant on the kid. Mom has a really limited
role and capability for keeping the baby on board. If you are a baby
crazed lemur then you sort of try to move it with you hand and wrist
and hopefully, oh joy of joys, it might crawl onto you.
The ladies in green are particularly baby-crazed now. 23 is the only
one with a baby (C calls it Gollum-- it's kind of freaky looking) and
the females are constantly trying to groom her, and be near her, and
the dominant female 9 will sit next to 23 with her arms around her
belly so she can't walk away. 336, who is 23's 2 year old daughter, is
particularly manic. She. Wants. A. BABY.
BabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBaby Baby! She can't get
enough of the kid and is always bopping around 23 now (23 used to beat
on her a lot -- abusive mom) sniffing and grooming and cuddling and
sitting on top of and trying to get hold of the baby. Whenevever we
need to find 336, we just look for 23 and there she is. It's pretty
endearing.
The kids are only a week or two old and are already riding around on
everyone (even 3 year old males). It's going to be crazy to keep track
of these kids IDs until we get them marked. At least there are a lot
of them so hopefully I'll have a good sample size left after they
start disappearing.
It was really cool to see two giant individuals of the animals I've
seen around, but apparently only junior versions of. It's been getting
warm lately, as in it's over 40 degrees C (105 Farenheit), so the
hidden creatures are starting to emerge little by little. This also
means that the giant centipedes and scorpions are also starting to
poke their heads out too, and I'm not looking forward to the rains
when they really make a showing. For the mean time we'll just have to
be content with lemur babies and giant chameleons.
The arboretum was pretty great. We had a tour guide that took us for
about an hour walk, guided in English, through the garden. The plants
were all labeled really nicely and the garden is starting to mature
well. It's filled with plants that are native to southern Madagascar,
and was really nice to see many of the plants that I see every day
(but don't know because the lemurs don't eat them), as well as learn
how local people put a lot of the different plants to use: from
building pirogues to various medicinal uses. A lot of these were
really nicely put together in well-illustrated signs (I must admit,
I'm now a sucker for informational signage).
At the end of the walk we came to their small 'museum', which as a
smattering of different minerals, some nice fossils, and more plants
in jars. And we got to see their radiated tortoise enclosure at had
over 40 tortoises in it! They were packed on top of each other and
hugging the walls for places to sleep. It was amazing to see so many
tortoises all together. We see them on a fairly regular basis around
the forest, but that many tortoises is a sight. I'm not sure how they
all got there -- if they are rescues or if they were collected. I'm
not sure. I didn't get to ask because our tour guide legged it out of
there as fast as she could.
We had a nice lunch after the walk on the veranda, near the pool. Goat
cheese is one of the house specialties, so we had plenty of that. The
Swiss guy (Pétignat) who started the place moved to Madagascar as an
expat and originally tried to raise goats and market goat cheese. In
true Malagasy style, his tomb is in the center of the garden. Anyhow,
while his chevre business didn't really quite take off, he was also an
amateur botanist and decided to open a botanical garden as well. So,
we had plants and goat cheese, and I don't think that either of us
minded at all. The cheese was great -- full of garlic and herbs. Now
if only I can get someone in a village here to make goat cheese, we'd
be set.
