Comparative Primate Cognition: Lemurs and Red-tailed Monkeys

  Ring-tailed lemur participant, Amy Ta-dah! After comparing the data and drawing my conclusions from the results, I created a presentation which I gave live at the Summer Undergraduate Research conference for my university, and then later recorded it for YouTube, which I will include in the next post. I will present the results below: Here we have a side-by-side comparison of the data from Phase One with both the monkeys, and lemurs. Taking into account that the lemurs could likely smell the food in the blue boxes once they got close enough while the monkeys likely could not, these results are pretty much what I would have expected.    Overall, the monkeys visited both colors of boxes less, while the lemurs visited them more. Some of this I account for the increase in the crowned lemurs' participation during Phase Two. I think the most useful data in regards to the participant animals' cognition came from my own observations during the study. Of both the lemurs and the m...

  Red-tailed monkey participants by Steve Gotz Phase Two Data I felt like this project was extremely successful! I accomplished everything I set out to do despite being a one-woman research team (couldn't have done it without the zookeepers of course!) and gathered lots of interesting observations and data. Also it was just plain fun! Who doesn't want to watch cute monkeys and lemurs everyday? I'll relay the data from this phase below:                                   Here the monkeys showed that they definitely favored the blue boxes over the yellow ones! Interestingly however, their interest in the blue boxes waned across the first three days, then spiked on the last day. Their interest in the yellow boxes was increased on the first day of Phase Two compared to the following days, but remained about the same on days two through four. And the data from the lemurs: Remember  to keep...

Female crowned lemur participant Tasherit                                                                                                              Phase Two with the Lemurs Phase Two with the lemurs was similar to Phase Two with the monkeys, however the lemurs seemed even less excited to be receiving the boxes again on Day One than the monkeys haha. ("This again?") However, the three female ring-tailed lemurs were even more bossy toward the subservient male ring-tailed lemur, making sure they got priority with the boxes over him. So they definitely seem more familiar with the fact that the boxes contain food. Just as observed in the red-tailed monkeys, there were lots of instances of the lemurs actively choosing ...

  Red-tailed monkey participant, photo by Steve Gotz Phase Two with the monkeys went great!  The second phase started on June 29th, and on the first day, they were less excited than they were on the first day of Phase Two, but more excited than on the last day of Phase One. All of the blue boxes were opened first, although one yellow one was inspected without opening. There was lots of shredding of the boxes and paper, similar to day one of Phase One. By the end of Phase Two, the monkeys had become very fast and efficient at opening the boxes, and showed much preference for interacting with the blue ones. There was lots of instances of active choosing of a blue box over a yellow, when for instance Ikea monkey came over to a yellow box, looked down at it briefly before running over to a blue box and promptly opening it. In the later days, there was no shredding of the boxes, similar to the pattern seen in Phase One, when it seems they become less excited about the boxes themsel...

Red-tailed monkey at the Oakland Zoo.       Photos by     Steven Gotz. Ring-tailed lemur at the Oakland Zoo. Going over the data from Phase One has been surprisingly fun! It has been rewarding to see the data back up what I observed when the animals had the boxes. I am not super tech and number savvy, so my sister has been helping me with that. In the above chart, you can see how many visits to each color of box both the lemurs and the red-tailed monkeys have made, and how those visits fluctuate for each day. It is important to note that for the lemurs, there are more animals and therefore more boxes than there are monkeys, and boxes for the monkeys. It is also possible that the lemurs used their sense of smell to aid them in choosing boxes, but interestingly they almost always chose to engage with yellow boxes first. Red-tailed Monkeys: The above graph and chart show the red-tailed monkeys visits to the boxes during Phase One. You can see that there is ove...

  Busy busy busy! I have now completed Phase One of my project with both the lemurs, and the red-tailed monkeys. It went fantastic! I lost track of the amount of blue and yellow boxes I assembled, painted, and stuffed, and am very thankful to the zookeepers I have been working with for putting the treats in the blue ones, and giving them to the animals every morning for four days this month. I made sure to bring each string a box of pastries as thanks! 😄Throughout Phase One, I also have presented my elevator pitch/research project summary to many zoo guests, staff, and volunteer/intern colleagues at the zoo who have asked me what it is I am doing while I am there. I started Phase One with the lemurs (four ring -tailed lemurs, and two crowned lemurs) on June 15 th , and start times varied between 9:40 – 10:15 am depending on when the zookeeper came out to put the boxes on exhibit. Mirroring the results with the red-tailed monkeys, the lemurs were all very excited about the boxes at...