Research Adventures in Japan Chapter 3: Leaping Lemurs and "American" Eats

-

Yokoso (welcome!) and thanks for joining me for my 3rd update! 

Project Update

This week I trained the lemurs and marmosets how to make selections and started trials. I've had the help of two wonderful researchers at the JMC Drs. Masaki Tomonaga & Yuta Shintaku who study primate cognition and morphology respectively. I've collected all of the data for two lemurs and two marmosets and partial data for a couple of marmosets. These guys have lots of personality and their interest in interacting with me, how excited they are about the testing apparatus, and how long their attention span lasts varies a lot individual to individual! I don't have a lot of pictures of the actual research since I'm handling food and have gloves on covered in mashed fruit and crickets most of the time -- sorry!

 I did also walk through the center to plan how to test the larger primates. The facility has over 50 species of primates -- the largest variety in the world! Some famous residents include Mopkun the white faced saki monkey (click the link to see him eating watermelon!) and the Japanese macaques. The main troop frequently washes their food in the pools of their enclosure. There are some groups of macaques that do this in the wild -- like many behaviors, it seems like older individuals teach younger monkeys how to do this so once a group learns food-washing, it becomes a part of their "culture." I'm hoping to come back in the winter soon because there is a tradition of building bonfires for these macaques who cuddle up by them to keep warm!


Left: Japanese macaques enjoying a fire -- PC JMC. Right: This chimp was showing off his lettuce leaf -- followed me around the entire enclosure!

Nagoya

Another JSPS fellow, Elaine Miller, and I went to Nagoya. It is one of the 5 largest cities in Japan so there's lots to do. The Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens was suggested by multiple people and we also had a shopping district recommended but we both would like to go back for Nagoya Castle, a few temples, and the parks! The train from Inuyama to Nagoya was easy but we decided to take on the challenge of walking the 5 miles from the station to the zoo -- phew! We did stop at a couple of parks one of which was hosting a free concert! The zoo was really nice and they had animals I'd never seen before. Some of our favorites included the Japanese section (including Japanese macaques and tanuki, racoon dogs) and the hippopotamus. After the zoo we got on a subway (my first time!) to the shopping district which had lots of local clothing and vintage American clothes (think 90's band t-shirts).

Left: Hippo chasing after the water his keeper was spraying. Center: Kangaroos were definitely a mood check the central most one! Right: Not a great shot of the gorilla but their enclosure looks super fun!

American Eats in Japan

I've had a couple of people make fun of me for eating at places I can back in the States but somehow Japan has made American staples better. Corn dogs are common at convenience stores and places like the zoo -- the breading tends be thicker, cornier, and crisper on the outside. On a whim I decided to walk 35 minutes to the nearest McDonald's and it was totally worth it -- best fast food burger ever.  Leave a comment if you can guess which American restaurant the last picture is from (answer in the caption so no cheating!).

Top: View of Inuyama Castle on my way to McDonald's! Left: Samurai soy burger, Calpis shake, and fries just like back home. Right: Beef patty with garlic sauce topped with green onions and eggplant. Potatoes, carrots, & spinach on the side. All from Denny's!

Next week: more cognition tests and conveyor belt sushi. Until then, Sayonara!


Research is funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Research Adventures in Japan Chapter 6: History and Fish

-
Image
 Konichiwa and welcome to my 6th update! Project Update This week we collected data from another Japanese macaque to help boost our sample size. I've redone data analysis with our new samples and results are still fitting into the literature! We're meeting with the mandrill and chimpanzee keepers to plan out data collection for this week. It will be my first time working with a great ape (I've previously worked with "lesser" apes which are gibbons). Sekigahara Historical Battlefield Sekigahara (Gifu province) is a small town of ~8,000 people in central Japan. It's situated in a valley surrounded by tall peaks, at least for a Midwesterner used to flat cropland. You might not be surprised that it doesn't pop up on the top tourist blogs or Google searches of "What to do in Japan." However, this valley was the site of one of the most important battles in Japanese history! Sekigahara has a museum about the battle. On your walk from the train station t...
Read more

Research Adventures in Japan Chapter 7: Fish and Chimps

-
Image
Konichiwa and welcome to week 7!  Research Update   This week I started collecting data from chimpanzees with the help of Dr. Tomonaga. Chimps are our closest living relative and have been seen -- both in the wild and captivity -- with some of the most extraordinary "advanced" behaviors so I was really excited to work with them for the first time. In the wild, chimps have been seen to use sticks as termite dip-sticks, use "spears" when hunting smaller primates, and have border patrols between their and other chimp groups' territories. Additionally, not a behavior unique to chimps, but seen more in captive chimps than other primates, is feces throwing. This can be used to communicate a variety of things including social status or just trying to get some one's attention. I experienced this behavior firsthand for the first time this week and was very lucky the chimp trying to get my attention missed me! One of the chimps at JMC showing off his lettuce -- I know...
Read more

Research Adventures in Japan Chapter 5: The Old World

-
Image
 Konichiwa and welcome to my 5th update! Project Update We collected data from 5 more individuals this week! Three Japanese macaques and two mandrills. Both of these species are considered Old World Monkeys (OWM). Another thing both of these species share is red coloration driven by sexual selection -- so males in both species who have redder skin are preferred by females and are more dominant in social groups. However, the blue color of male mandrills is yet to be explained. Their coloration is so striking that Charles Darwin wrote in his T he Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex,  "no other member in the whole class of mammals is coloured in so extraordinary a manner as the adult male mandrill". There is one famous mandrill for us 90's kids, and that's Rafiki from The Lion King (if you're one of those folks who think he's a completely made up monkey, look at the live action version -- he's definitely a mandrill). A male mandrill from JMC -- j...
Read more