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.