Duke University | Howard Hughes Undergraduate Program

 Response to the film And the Band Played On:

Competition can be the best and worst motivator for scientific research.  It is a powerful force in igniting public support and funding for research.  The space race during the Cold War is an example such a phenomenon.  After the launching of sputnik in 1957, the United States fought the Soviets on the scientific battlefield.  NASA was founded - we launched rockets, prioritized science in education and, in 1969, put a man on the moon. 

However, competition between scientists working toward the same goals can have negative consequences.  Often, as depicted in And the Band Played On, the outcome can be ugly.  In fighting to identify and combat the AIDS virus, some of the scientists in the film lost sight of the true purpose of their research – to benefit the lives of the general public.  Personal glory and selfishness go against the spirit of scientific research.

This post seems a little sad picture-less, so I'm adding a photo from last Thursday.

 So this isn’t the most scientific of posts, but last Thursday at the Lemur Center I had some free time and managed to snap some photos of our irresistibly cute test subjects and their neighbors:

 

This is a red-ruffed lemur.  On his hand you can see nails,  an ancestral primate trait.  Except for a grooming claw on their second digits, lemurs, like humans, have nails instead of claws. 

 

This is Quinn, a blue-eyed black lemur (My favorite species).  

 

 

Here's Aristides, a ringtail.

 

 

Hebe, a black and white ruffed lemur.

 

Romeo, a diademed sifaka.

Here are some photos of Camila and I with L'amour and Quinn, a pair of blue-eyed black lemurs, Eulemur macaco flavifrons.  Female E. m. flavifrons are actually reddish-blonde in color.

Here is a step-by-step look into a day of testing at the Lemur Center:

Upon our arrival, Camila, Nick and I set up our equipment and prepare the fruit needed for the tests.

 

We attach the camera to the tripod..

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...and verify that the gloves are the correct color and on the correct hands.

We cut single grapes into eight pieces, and banana slices into four pieces and then add some raisins.

 

Then, we double-check that we have enough fruit to test and center each subject, and, if necessary, distract its cagemate.

Once we reach the enclosure, we set up the mat and camera. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, we begin the test (in this case, Nick is pretesting  E. mongoz, Selena.  In the actual test, two experimenters are present)

 

 

 Sometimes we need to distract the subject's cagemate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we are finished, we say goodbye to the lemurs, and clean off the dirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

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.

 

Camila recorded data and distracted Jorge while Nick conducted Selena's pretest.

 

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. 

On Friday afternoon, I sat on my knees in grainy gold dirt and tossed a piece of mushy grape onto a paper towel in front of me.  It was hot, smolderingly hot, actually, and the ground was covered with black ants, rolling along with their little ball bodies scampering over the fallen pieces of grape that hadn't hit the paper towel (my aim is not that great).

"Cleomenis," I said.  The female Lemur catta, or ring-tailed lemur had entered her sleep box.  She showed no interest in participating in any silly human experiment, even if it involved grapes and bananas.  "Cleomenis," I cooed.  I couldn't help talking to her like she was a baby or a puppy.  Ringtails, with their little black noses and round eyes are some of the cutest lemurs (actually, I can't rank them - they're all pretty cute). 

 Mosquitoes were particularly vengeful that afternoon.  "They'll carry you away," a technician had warned my research partner Camila and I as we had walked to the outdoor silo that housed Cleomenis and her cagemate, Teres.

My name is Rachna Reddy.  I am a rising sophmore at Duke, and part of the Howard Hughes Research Fellows program.  This summer, I am continuing work in the lab of Dr. Brian Hare.  Dr. Hare studies cognitive evolution in primates and canines.  I am working on a project that investigates social inhibition across five species of lemur.  My mentor is a graduate student, Evan Maclean, who is currently in the Congo studying bonobos and chimpanzees.

Camila and I spend each day out at the Duke Lemur Center.  The DLC is home to about 250 prosimian primates, including lemurs, lorises and bush babies.  Most of the lemur enclosures are outdoors, and in the summer many lemurs free-range in the Duke forest. 

It's a different lab experience than most.  I come home smelling like ringtail scent-mark and have to get sand out of my socks.  "It's like being at the beach," Camila and I joked one day, dusting sand off our shorts and legs.

Here's the social inhibition experiment in a nutshell:

Two experimenters sit in front of a lemur.  They each have a single piece of grape in one of their hands.  They both hold the food out to the lemur, and it chooses one of them to approach.  One of the experimenters is "mean."  If the lemur approaches the "mean" experimenter's hand, he or she pulls it away.  The "nice" experimenter allows the lemur to take the food.  After ten trials of this, the "mean" experimenter adds more food to his or her hand.  Then comes the real test.  Has the lemur memorized the reputations of the mean and nice experimenters?  And, is it able to inhibit its desire to run toward the greater amount of food? 

Before we run this test, we run a pretest that animals must pass before moving on to the test.  In the pretest, a single experimenter puts a piece of grape in one hand, and a greater amount of food (that includes yummy bananas and raisins) in the other.  He or she then allows the lemur to approach and take food from one hand. The pretest is meant to ensure that lemurs prefer to have a greater amount of food.

Sometimes, though, lemurs, like Cleomenis, just aren’t interested in participating in the test.  This unpredictability is probably the hardest part about working with animals.  The amount of work you get done each day depends entirely upon what they feel like doing, no matter how long you sit in front of them with food in your hand.

The following photos are from Cleomenis' pretest.  The dark blue gloves and masks are a precaution against swine flu.  Usually, we do not wear them. 

 

Here are Cleomenis and Teres together.

Here I am trying to lure Cleomenis to the ground.

 This shows part of the setup of the pretest.  We videotape all the tests we run.  Sometimes a particularly curious lemur will climb on the camera.