A New Problem
This summer, one of the things I hope to learn more about are the behaviors and personalities of lemurs at the DLC.
Earlier today, Jorge, an Eulemur mongoz, jumped onto my shoulders. He'd been astonishingly bold from the beginning. I'd had to distract him with a sticky bit of raisin while Camila opened the cage door. In all my other experiences of opening doors at the Lemur Center, even the most curious lemurs had jumped back from the door before I'd opened it. But Jorge seemed ready as ever to leap right out into the pathway.
In the wild, mongoose lemurs are pair-bonded. They are housed in pairs at the lemur center as well. Jorge's cagemate is called Selena. With mongoose lemurs, as with many lemur species, the female is the dominant sex. Primates have very complex social structures, and female dominance is rare among most other primate species. Because Selena is dominant to Jorge, Camila first offered fruit to Selena so she would be distracted while I pre-tested Jorge.
It was clear from the moment we stepped in, that both E. mongoz were eager and hungry. They scampered and stuck out their grasping rubbery fingers for the edges of the food dishes.
We were glad for their interest. If lemurs are curious and motivated, they are more likely to participate in the entire pre-test.
Still, Camila and I both shrieked with surprise when Jorge leapt onto her back.
We tossed food so he would follow it, but this lemur was unlike any other we'd worked with before. When I sat down, cross-legged in front of the mat, he and Selena began climbing all over me to get to the food bowl.
"I've never had this problem with a lemur before!" I said. Usually they were like Cleomenis had been, shy and uncertain about approaching. Camila and I laughed. "Have they not been fed or something?"
After Camila had Selena distracted at the opposite end of the enclosure, I struggled to pull out a piece of fruit to center Jorge while he sat on my knee and pulled at the rim of the bowl and ripped away at pieces of paper towel I was trying in vain to cover the dish with. After every trial he'd run at me and start grabbing at anything he could, shredding the paper towel, gobbling smidgens of fruit he managed to wrestle from between my crossed arms. I'd have to be fast and toss pieces onto the centering paper before he could leap into my lap and attempt to attack the food bowl again.
"Jorge, no! Stop that. Here, here look at this banana!" I'd say and try to toss a bit of peel away from me.
"I feel like I sound like an exhausted mother!" I said. Jorge acted like a misbehaving two-year-old.
By the time he completed his pretest, we had to take a break and cut more fruit. Camila said she felt like a grandmother spoiling a child when she fed him to keep him distracted. At one point, he crawled right onto her lap and sat on her knee while she recorded data.
Today (June 29th), Camila, Nick and I returned to test Jorge and Selena and we managed to snap some photos of them. Nick is a new undergraduate volunteer.
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Here is Nick trying to keep the food bowl away from Jorge who is desperate to get his hands on some fruit. Selena watches from the pole.
Jorge decided to leap onto Camila
He crawled onto my shoulder as well.
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Camila recorded data and distracted Jorge while Nick conducted Selena's pretest.
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This is Selena, the female. E. mongoz are sexually dichromatic. Beard colors are an easy way to tell the sexes apart. Females' beards are white, while males' are orange.
I want to stress that although the lemurs in these photographs look extremely cuddly, PRIMATES DO NOT MAKE GOOD PETS. Jorge is the only lemur I have every encountered that jumped on someone's shoulders, and he only did so in order to access food.
