BSOD and Spiders...

The recent radio silence is due to my new status as a resident of Inconceivable-amount-of-work-to-do-in-a-spectacularly-insufficient-period-of-time-ville.

Since we last spoke via the written word and the magic of the internet I have presented my project to the school and written my research proposal, which will ultimately make up about a third of my thesis.

My proposal seminar was the first time I had ever spoken to the school and I didn't know the majority of the academics in the audience. Basically I was fretting over it for about a fortnight. I had practiced it over a dozen times and re-written my whole presentation at least three times.

It was all going amazingly well. I was speaking slowly, well slowly for me, so, I was speaking at normal human speed. I was getting nods and smiles and was just generally giving the best presentation ever heard, anywhere in the world, ever.

Then the computer died.

Not just a laptop, oh no that would've been easy to fix, the in-built computer system and projector decided that it had no reason left to live and sprinted off this mortal coil. Blue screen of death. In the middle of my presentation. Which was only the most important thing I would ever do in my life. Ever (not an exaggeration).

Wonderful presentation the likes of which may never be seen again....

Ahhhhhh!!!! There is no God!!!! The technology is rising up against us!!

But being someone who is composed under high stress and capable of thinking on my feet (yes, yes, all of those adjectives are me) I didn't let the potential robot apocalypse impede my imparting of gibbon wisdom. So you can breath a sigh of relief that, despite the best efforts of the cyborg rebellion, my proposal seminar went brilliantly.

However my research proposal itself has experienced some larger hurdles. Namely my apathy. This last week I have discovered that time spent on the internet, watching game of thrones and secret garden and sleeping is a much more enjoyable way to spend my time. And enjoyment is the name of the game. Except in honours. In honours, pain is the name of the game. Its not a very nice game.

Wacky Korean dramas are always preferable 

I have spent over a full week sitting at a desk, reading papers and typing from 9am til 5pm. At the end of each day my brain is so full I am no longer capable of forming complete sentences let alone producing world-class research. Unfortunately there are only 24 hours in the day and due to my weak human shell requiring feeding and sleeping there is even less time in the day to actually do work. Therefore I haven't been going into the zoo and instead have been mindlessly drinking coffee and yelling obscenities at the intermittent internet. 

Despite my best efforts, actually that's a lie, despite my mediocre to average efforts I didn't finish my draft by Friday. I had told my supervisor I would..

I convinced myself to take the weekend off and come Monday, I found that the two day extension I had given myself had been wasted. By me. Gosh I can be lazy. Unfortunately late Monday afternoon my supervisor came into the honours room to give another student, who is prompt, organised and an all-round show off, their draft back. I dealt with this like any mature adult would and hid behind my desk until she left.

Thankfully I have now finished my draft and can now come out of hiding. This means I can go get coffee and go to the bathroom without sneaking around corners and skulking in hallways. 

Unfortunately life is out to get me at the moment. Just when all my work is concluding, I am riding high on a euphoric bubble of self-importance, life decided to nearly kill me. Death by spider. 

The dark and ominous tale begins thus:

I had spent the evening with friends, playing laser tag. It was an enjoyable sport and I was full with the pleasure of my own success and the merciless defeat of my enemies. 

We were leaving the car park whose dark, unlit corners boded some unfortunate event, what a fool I was not to listen to those whispers of danger...

My arrogance clouded me to the obvious, when giggling and chatting in the car, a spider comparable in size to a melon or a small child's head ran across the windshield. Unlike a natural spider, who runs in a zig-zag motion and seeks the darkest corners to hide in and conduct its nefarious plotting, this unholy beast ran across the centre of the windshield, with no fear of predator, for what predator would hunt such an atrocity. 

As it ran, for a second, our eyes met. In its gaze I felt the hatred of the devil, and an intelligence masked only by its apparent similarity to a common house spider. In that moment, I understood. This spider was meant for me. His hatred and fury was intent on one goal. My complete and utter destruction.

I screamed and yelled for the driver to stop the car. He did not heed my warnings. I had no time to explain the perilous nature of our situation. I undid my seat belt and leapt out of the car. The car was still only in second gear so thankfully I did myself no damage, much to the beast's chagrin. 

Finally, my friends became aware of the severity of the situation, and while I stood in the middle of the road, (protected from the beast by the likelihood of passing vehicles), they dealt that vicious, abhorrent, mutilation of nature a swift death via shoe.

Needless to say its been a stressful week.

Thankfully tomorrow I can return to the zoo, where word on the street is that the gibbons miss me. At least some of the animal kingdom isn't out to kill me.

Meet The Silveries

I decided it was about time you were all formally introduced to the lovely ladies and gentle-apes who provide the fodder for my poor excuse for humour and will hopefully provide me with amazing results to publish.

For no rational reason, first off the blocks, allow me to introduce The Silveries:

The Silveries are the only family of Silvery Gibbons in my study (hence my unique and creative nickname for them) or as they're more formally known Hylobates moloch. Silvery Gibbons are also known as the Javan Gibbon because, surprise, surprise they're found in Java, Indonesia. They are critically endangered, which means there's a 50% chance they will be extinct in the next decade (by comparison Pandas are endangered, but not critically). This is predominantly due to the extensive deforestation of Java. Partly a result of the massively increasing human population but also due to extensive illegal logging which produces furniture and other homewares.

Silvery gibbons live in nuclear families, so essentially they have a breeding male and female and any offspring under eight years of age. Infants are dependent on their mothers until two years of age but remain with the family until they disperse as mature adults. Because of these family structures the infant mother relationship is very important. A poor attachment in infancy can lead to lifelong social problems and affect the individual's survivability.

The Silveries live on the island at Perth Zoo, their nearest neighbours are the Ring-Tailed Lemurs (who can produce an incredible cacophany) and the various waterfowl in the lake (including my nemesis the Pelicans).

I am Lemur, hear me scream!shoutyabberyell!cackle.

Unfortunately being on the island means the gibbons are out of the range of good photos on my camera. Any decent photos in this post are taken by Perth Zoo, any that look like they were taken by a blind person with no arms were taken by me. Never fear, I will be saving up for a new lens for my camera, so when I get the money together, prepare to be amazed by incredible photos (so in a decade or two).

But, without further ado allow me to introduce the five Silvery Gibbons representing their species in my study.

Jury

Damn kids.

Jury is the adult male of the group. He is in his mid-twenties and unfortunately has diabetes. He now has to have daily insulin shots but he's great with his training and comes up straightaway to get his shot in the morning. The poor fella also has to contend with a 7 year old, a 4 year old and a 1 year old hooning about on the island at all hours of the day. 

He's pretty relaxed and acts much older than his age. He has taken to sitting on the ground when the youngin's get too over-exuberant. Unfortunately for him there are plans to breed another infant soon, so he's going to have to keep on with the father schtick for a bit longer. However, he has a pretty solid partner in Hecla.

Hecla

The best mother of the bunch.

Hecla's our golden girl. Of the gibbons at Perth Zoo she has the best track record as a mum and a partner. She's successfully rearing her fourth infant and her intervals between pregnancies are getting shorter. She is also in her mid-twenties, and has been with partner Jury for a long time.

How she maintains her eternal patience I'll never know. Unlike Jury who often goes and hides from the kids in the corner, she always pays attention to them. Even if they're jumping at her for attention. Most of the time she will subdue them with a hug or a half-hearted effort at play. 

Nakula

Just playing with my log....

Poor Nakula. He's seven years old and a mature adult, at this age in the wild he would have dispersed from the group to go find his own mate. Unfortunately, being in a zoo, he can't just hop out and start looking for women in South Perth. There were plans in place to take him to Java and release him into a sanctuary but that has now fallen through, so the whole process has to start again. It is a very, very long process.

In the meantime Nakula is slowly getting pushed out of the group. He still spends a bit of time playing with his sisters, but he spends the majority of the time on his own. He entertains himself by rolling a log around or batting at the ladders and balls. He has a fan in his keeper who gives him an extra banana every morning. There is no word on how Nakula feels whether this banana is a worthy trade.

Although Nakula has been spotted peeing on a duck from the branches of a tree, so I think he's doing okay.

Cahaya

Oh hey, I didn't see you there.

And, the ratbag. At four years old Cahaya is going through the gibbon terrible twos. And boy can't everyone tell. She swings up behind the others and hits them on the head, then tears away. She tries to grab at the keepers/me as we pass. She is the greediest little ape I've ever seen and will run around trying to get as much fruit as possible into her mouth in one hit. She is a favourite of her sister Sunda though who always loves to play.

Today she discovered that the electric fence had been turned off and was grabbing and poking it, later she taught Sunda. She's going to get a nasty shock if she isn't paying attention when they turn it on.

Despite her terrible behaviour she is sharp as a tack. She follows the routine of the keepers and me to the minute. Today I got in trouble for taking an early toilet break. She was unimpressed at my lack of commitment.

Her favourite game is to try and catch the ducks that waddle onto the island. Those poor ducks. I don't know why they ever go near the gibbons.

Sunda

It's a grape, not her tongue...

And last, but by no means least, is little Sunda. She is just over a year old now and is really getting into the groove of being a gibbon. She's pretty brave, she ventures unhindered from mum although her mum is her favourite playmate. She and Cahaya go tearing through the island at times, up and down the trees, jumping and falling and swinging and climbing. Its positively dizzying. She had a bit of a shock today when she slipped and fell but she didn't fall very far and a hug from mum cleared it up in no time. 

A favourite among the keepers, Sunda is definitely the charmer. Although I suspect she is beginning to get spoilt. She demandingly trilled at the keeper until he feed her this morning. Cahaya will soon put her back in her place. If she turns her nose up at food for too long then its Cahaya's. 

So that's the Silveries. I hope you can appreciate their quirks and personalities, they're a great bunch of individuals. 

Before I go I'd like to make one special mention:

One of the African Painted Dogs at the Zoo had to be euthanised yesterday. They are going through breeding season and therefore are readjusting all their hierarchies, sadly violence and aggression is very common and deaths can result. Unfortunately now two of the dogs have been euthanased. Kibuiri and Half-Tail. Its a sad time for all the keepers and researchers and I want to offer my condolences. They were great dogs. I don't have an image of either of them but this is an old photo of one of the pups, once upon a time both Kiburi and Half-Tail would have looked like this.

xxxx

Such is the life when you are working with animals.

Warning: This is about penises.

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later.

As a zoologist I very quickly became accustomed to discussing penises and penis related functions in all their weird and wacky wonder a long, long time ago. Occasionally I forgot that stories about whale sex aren't dinner table conversation amongst the general public and I would like to apologise for that. However, I have reached an unusual cross-roads: I actually have to discuss and research penis related problems for my project. Naturally I feel if I have to research gibbon penises then everyone else can hear about it and suffer along with me.

So lets jump right in. You all remember this little fellow?

I have a penis problem!

Well, that's Nakai. He is now one year old and has just discovered an amazing trick his penis can do!

Early last week on a day which is now known as "Nakai's First Erection Day", Nakai got an erection. As a one year old boy he thought that this was just the bee's knees. Nobody else's genitalia could do this! He was so proud he stuck it through the wire to show me himself. 

Not only did he feel that I should appreciate his new discovery to an excessive degree he also wanted to show mum, Viann, and big sister, Kit. While infant gibbon erections are awkward at the best of times they become extra awkward when the infant sticks his erection in the face of his mum and sister and gets them to lick it...

Now being subject to little ape boy displays is part and parcel of the job. If you work with dogs, you clean up poo. If you work with cats, you get clawed and hated. If you work with apes, you see a hell of a lot of penises. However, general zoo visitors are not so used to overt displays of masculinity. Especially those under the age of ten. 

Three little girls, dressed in a lot of pink, and their mum bore witness to Nakai's little display of success. Either their mum didn't notice or she has the best poker face in the world when she said (as Nakai was "hugging" Viann's head) "oh look at the little baby, he's giving his mum a hug, how sweet". 

Yeah, a hug.......

Now fellatio is not a big part of gibbon sexual behaviours (unlike Bonobos) and fellatio among family members is about as disturbing in the gibbon world as it is in the human one. Nobody boinks a relative. 

So this has presented me with a unique conundrum. If Nakai isn't engaging in a sexually oriented behaviour then what the hell is he doing?? On discussion with my supervisor and some PhD students I have narrowed it down to the following options (and yes those conversations were always super, super awkward).

• He has a cut or an infection and licking was a way of attending to the irritation. However, this doesn't explain why he was erect the whole time.
• He was acting like a little boy and the other gibbons tasted the...... discharge. They are inherently curious creatures. However, there didn't appear to be any discharge.
• He's a bit of an idiot. 

So in order to figure out what is going on I have the pleasure of researching gibbon erections. He may only have been partially erect and since I am not an expert I get to go researching images to determine the degree of erectness. There are just some Google images searches no one should ever have to do.

I also need to pay particular attention if it ever happens again to any discharge that may.... discharge.

Finally, I get to read every case of primate fellatio. Ever. I need try and determine an average age of onset. Needless to say the Bonobos are particularly over-represented in this literature.

The best outcome would be for it to never, ever, ever happen again and we then can all forget about it. 

And to whoever sees the browser history at UWA: I swear I am not horribly perverted. Its for science!!!!

So if you're ever sick of sitting at your desk researching something dull just be grateful you're not on google images trying to determine the degree of erectness a 1 year old gibbon had when he got his mum to lick his penis.

Oh look here's a happy picture:

Sunda: a FEMALE infant.

It's a Zoo Life

Ciao ciao,

I have come to a conclusion!

Its impossible to dislike working with animals. No matter how rude, smelly, bitey, faeces-associated they become you just have to remember that your working with these unique, incredible personalities and all the misery just drops away. Luckily I have not been subject to biting or faeces throwing. Gibbons can be a bit like dogs, they like you or they don't and you'll be damned if you can ever figure out why. They all took to me, thankfully, because my study would be impaired, as would my dignity, if I had to endure the shitstorm (literally) they have been known to unleash on their least favourite people.

I DISLIKE YOU!!! 

That doesn't mean they don't drive me mad sometimes. I get up bright and early, in fact so early it isn't bright, its still cold and dark, just so I can be at the zoo when they are waking up. This morning I got my customary hello and watched them engage in their morning grooming. Gibbons groom to reinforce their social bonds, its pretty logical when you think about it. If you've ever petted a dog you'll know how it makes you feel closer to them and you tend to like them even more, and that feeling is reciprocated. Especially if that dog is Aidan. Pat him and he'll love you for life.

Aidan. He loves you and your pats. And liver treats. And whoever provides him with liver treats. 

So the morning grooming is a very important part of a gibbon's daily social calendar, and it is what I am there to see. Who grooms who and for how long is a very good indicator of the esteem the gibbons hold each other in.

However this morning they spent a few minutes out and about and then decided that it was too early and they all went back to bed. Meanwhile I would love to go back to bed but I had to sit on my flimsy folding chair, in the chilly wind, bored out of my brain and I couldn't even go get a coffee because it was too early for the shop to be open (and to be honest even if it was open, zoo coffee? seriously?).

I was decidedly hating life, and inwardly railing at the gibbons who had the luxury of going back to bed on a whim, when I heard the elephants behind me.

An asian elephant.

Those of you who are familiar with Perth Zoo will know they walk Tricia (the older elephant) around the zoo for exercise. What you wouldn't know, and I had forgotten, was both elephants get walked around the zoo outside of the zoo hours to give them exercise.

I was regretting my life long ambition to work with animals and miserable in the cold but then I found myself sitting a few feet away from these beautiful, majestic animals, and I remembered that I get to work with amazing animals all day. I will try to never take my luck for granted again. Even if the little ladies and gents do act up occasionally or do drive me to distraction regularly, I get to spend my days sitting in a beautiful tropical enclosure, watching gibbons, surrounded by amazing animals who I have the luck and the blessing to see more frequently and closer than many people would ever dream. It almost makes up for the terrible coffee, almost.

You will also be pleased to hear, or not care in the least, that I am still winning the turf war with the pelicans. They like to follow the sun around the exhibit. When the time comes to move to where I am sitting, the lead pelican, I call him My Hombre, gets his posse and conducts a swim-by. This is occurs when an armada of pelicans (I have no idea what the collective noun for pelicans is but I think armada is appropriate) fluffs up their wings, swims around island to get a run up, and then when they come past me, they slow down, and give me the evil eye.

I can see into your soul...

According to google, it is a pod of pelicans. I think armada is better. Besides google doesn't know everything... it just knows almost everything.

Unfortunately I am back in the office now, writing down everything I have seen at the zoo. My next major assessment is a presentation on my project proposal and to be honest I'm quite excited. I love nothing more than talking about my apes and particularly to a captive audience. And by captive I don't mean they are interested. They are trapped, literally, they have to be there. Mwahahaha.

And on that sinister note I will leave you to your pelican-haunted nightmares. 

Until next time my hombres.

xxx

Working out the kinks..

Zdravstv,

Or for our non-Russian speaking readers: hello.
According to my blogging statistics (which are very accurate I hear) I have one reader who is in Russia. I know nobody in Russia, I suspect they got lost and found my blog by accident. But in case they're still reading: hello Russian friend!

I have now progressed into the Preliminary Observations stage of my project (do I hear a yay?). If you think that means I will talk less about how much reading and writing I'm doing and instead talk about the actual gibbons then you would be wrong!! Sorry. Unfortunately I still spend the majority of every day with my head burrowed in a book or my eyeballs slowly melting from hours of reading journal articles on my laptop.


I do have one small victory to report. I am winning the turf war between me and the pelicans. I got to the enclosure before they woke up and when they realised they couldn't sit at their roosting spot they had to go over and sit on the less comfortable poles. Suckers. They sulked and glared at me for over an hour.

Look at them. Losers.

I battle through pelicans and my lack-of-sleep induced haze to visit the zoo about four days a week which makes for a lovely way to spend each morning. And when I say morning I don't mean the civilised hour of 10am. I mean 7am. For now. Unfortunately my gibbons begin their daily activities around dawn every morning and dawn, in summer, is around 6am. So I need to be ready and watching before then. This I can handle and I did sign up for it. I did not, however, sign up for 3am wake up calls.

Some little male gibbon, whose name shall go unmentioned, has decided to flout a few thousand years of evolution and start his morning calls at 3am. Then call, non-stop, for an hour and a half. Gibbons typically call around dawn as way of strengthening their pair bonds and reminding everybody in South Perth that they are, in fact, in Gibbon territory. Calling at 3am, while it is still dark and while any sensible primate is asleep, serves none of these functions. The closest rationale I can come up with is that he is hunting for a mate. Since he is only just a sub-adult, he hasn't quite figured out that any potential single ladies are not keen on a male who interrupts their beauty sleep. Needless to say, he and I have had words. He has been informed of my feelings about this wasteful practice and hopefully if the fancy strikes again his mum or his sisters will tell him to shut his gob and go back to sleep like a sane gibbon.

Now before I proceed any further I must make one point abundantly clear: gibbons are APES. The 16 gibbon species are known as the Lesser Apes. The Great Apes are the Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Gorillas, Orangutans and Humans. If you want a rule of thumb: monkeys have tails, apes do not. So do not tell your small children to "look at the pretty monkeys" nor tell them "aren't these monkeys so cute and silly". You are teaching your children lies. It's like, racism, but for primates. Are you a racist? Do you want your children to be racist? No? Then learn the difference between an ape and a monkey!!!

Despite all their quirks I do love all my little gibbons. Even Kit, whose customary greeting is to stick her butt at me, and adjust everytime I move so its always pointing at my face. Still that's her way of saying hello and after a few minutes she will turn around to give me a proper good morning, she just likes to make sure I remember where I stand. Every morning.

Kit says good morning.

Jermei on the other hand is more contrary. She knows, somehow, when I am actually observing her, and she does anything except what would be interesting or useful for my research. Don't ask me how she knows what I am looking for, but she does. If she can't sit around and do nothing for ten minutes, she moves to an area where I can't see her and then engages in some interesting behaviour that I can't record. The moment I decide to record Lily's behaviour, however, it is an entirely different story.... 

Hey! Whatcha doin'?? Look at me! Hey!!

It's absolutely adorable and it does crack me up but if she keeps messing up my observations by sitting in front of me so I can't see anyone else then my data is going to look exceptionally odd.

Unfortunately I now have to return to the dreaded land of microsoft word and finish my work. I have my first assignment due tomorrow. I would much rather spend my afternoon hanging out with my ape friends but I doubt that I will pass honours if I neglect to write anything.

I will however be back in at the zoo tomorrow morning at the godawful hour of 7am to watch the mentally stable members of the silvery gibbon family calling. Hopefully our unnamed male will figure out that he's the only animal in the whole zoo calling at 3am and join in with his family's calling. You never know, miracles do happen.

Now I am off to drink more coffee and slog through my work.
Dasvidania!
xxx

There's a lot of indoor time in a zoo-based project...

Greetings from the dark, cold land of the honours students room,

The tedium has set in...
That didn't take long.
My most fascinating part of the day was when I found a funny T-Rex comic on the internet. In case you're wondering, no, there was absolutely no reason I should be looking at T-Rex comics during my research. It was a thrilling moment for all involved.

Me being thrilled.

I have been constructing the behaviour keys for my research. Essentially each key is coded for a behaviour I hold down the key when that behaviour is occurring, at the end of each sample I get a little spreadsheet which tells me the amount of time each key was held down for and voila I know how long each individual spent eating, playing, engaging in coitus etc.
In order to check the program was working properly I practiced by watching the other honours students and recording their movements over a ten minute period to construct the colourful key below.

A rainbow of stalking!

Another highlight of my amazing week is my ability to attract illness and plagues. I have an infection, a viral throat infection and a thoroughly burnt hand. I am currently self medicating with lemon and honey green tea and lots of sleep, oh and drugs, all the drugs. I could start quite a lucrative trade in illicit pharmaceuticals if this whole honours thing falls through. Stay tuned, this blog may document my slow descent into the world of organised crime.

Despite my incessant whinging (to be honest I'm impressed you're still reading) I am genuinely having a good time. Unfortunately I'm in the initial planning and reading phase of my project not the going-to-the-zoo-and-watching-baby-apes-phase. In case you're wondering, the latter phase is the better one. But never fear! I get to go to the zoo this afternoon and my friend and colleague, Simone, will be pulling an all-nighter at the zoo on the night of the full moon, I am exceptionally tempted to invite myself along to that party.. Although to be honest I like sleeping and I hate being cold so it probably won't be as fun as I imagine.

However I did drop into the zoo briefly the other day and Lily came up to say hello when she saw me. Cute gibbons make all the reading and headaches worthwhile.

The lovely Lily.

I promise my next post will be full of whacky zoo related highjinks or whacky overcaffeinated rants. Either way you'll be entertained and not forced to read about my many woes. Unless I get another illness, then I'll be complaining until the cows come home. And I don't have any cows. So that will be FOREVER.

Cute baby gibbons!!

Good Morrow Gentle Readers,

You may be wondering why I am blogging about a year, which I will tell the majority of you about, in person, on a daily basis. Well, you're not the only people in my life and its a free internet where I can say whatever I want without your judgemental judgement, you judgers.

Apparently honours is the best and worst year of your life. My coordinator even felt it necessary to quote Dickens, although I think the French Revolution was probably a period more suited to a Dickensian novel than my honours thesis.

Despite the doomsayers I am currently feeling pretty optimistic about this year.

Pictured: Optimism.

I have decided to study the attachment of hand-reared gibbons to their mothers compared to mother-reared gibbons and a fostered gibbon based on the theories of attachment developed by Bowlby.

For the non-scientists: I want to see if the babies who stayed with their mums like their mums more.

The big plus of this question is that it is a unique study and never attempted before with gibbons or with such a variety of rearing techniques in the infants and I get to look at baby gibbons. All year. Baby. Gibbons.

A baby gibbon.

That charming little fellow is, in fact, Nakai, one of the gibbons in my study. 

I have two species in my study the White-Cheeked Gibbons and the Silvery Gibbons and three families to compare. Each individual has their own quirks and tricks and I'll detail each one in later posts.

However, before the best of the study (the baby gibbon bit) can be done I have to do the slog work first. Unfortunately the slog work involves reading hundreds upon hundreds of articles and books. And understanding those many many words. So before you get to read about my exciting adventures at the zoo involving exotic animals and screaming children with ice cream, you get to hear about my exciting adventures with words!!

I am just as thrilled.

Hopefully this year is as good as my optimistic thumbs up hopes it will be. But if it isn't you can hear firsthand about the stress and tears, right here, so you can empathise and care about me or laugh and gloat, really its up to you...

For me now, its back to my book "Baboon Mother and Infants". Stay tuned for another installment called "Why I Hate Baboons".

xx