The monkeys

So I got to meet my monkeys a couple of days ago, they are adorable. Most of that day was spent trying to learn to ID them all, which it turns out I am not horrible at. I don't have all of them, but there are like five that I can recognise pretty consistently. The one thing I am definitely qualified to do is collect their poo, which has to be labeled and rated for consistency and content. I've been told to stop it, but I'm still able to add to my collection when no-one's looking.

Then yesterday Brendan the PhD student was off so he sent me and another assistant to go explore the territory so we would get to know their favorite spots to be monkeys. Turns out it's trees. I think I have the makings of a fine primatologist.

Basically for the next couple of weeks we will be training. We have to learn IDs and how to transcribe their behaviour using a rather long list of codes and syntax rules. It's probably not all that interesting for you guys so I'll leave it at this and give you some monkey photos. I will also be trying to get photos of other stuff so don't worry, it's not just going to be capuchins from here on out. But for now here are some of my favorite.

 First off, this is pretty representative of where they live.

It's expensive, but they have great schools

 This is Quijote, the alpha male.

He's quite boisterous and can be aggressive, but it's mainly to impress the females. He can be quite a good dad.

One day, son, all of this will be yours. Now stop humping me. Did you just poo?

This is Minstrel, the alpha female.

And here's Heinrich, a former alpha who now is basically like an angry uncle who goes about either pretending to be alpha again or else sulking when he gets called out.

I love Heinrich

Anyway you probably don't care about all their names, so I'll leave it at that for the introductions, but here are a few general comments about them. What I really love about these monkeys is that you can really see their individual personalities and the really intricate group dynamics that arise as a result of them. It's never really fair to say that "capuchins do" x or y; each individual and each group has different sets of behaviours and characteristics.

Some are beautiful

Some are derpy

derp

Sometimes they're cuddly

Sometimes they're angry

Sometimes they're shy

And it's always fun to try and figure out what they're thinking

I am the king. I am the king and this is my feast.

What... what is this? It feels like a tree, but... somehow small?

I dunno, man, I mean... How could we even tell if we're in the matrix or not?

In conclusion, monkeys.

derp

Living conditions, first day

So this place is completely beautiful. It's located  right by a town called Bagaces but it really is in the middle of the jungle. Since this is still the tail end of the rainy season it's really mainly overgrown canopy.

       

mangos

bananas

giant mange-touts

 There are 2 buildings where we live. The first is the house, called Casa Piscina, which has the kitchen and big dinner table, and is basically the base.

no base is complete without minimalist Halloween decorations

                                      

It's also where the pets are kept

dogs

cat

hawk

The second building is the bodega, essentially a huge tarp roof with a couple of buildings attached. Most of us sleep in tents under this thing, and we have a bathroom and a couple of storage rooms as well. We have to share the space with a bunch of random junk, but we have lots of room and I am confident I will eventually be able to build a small aircraft out of these spare parts if I could only find a few more rubber bands and some chewing gum.

 

This is where I live. I've got a contractor coming over to talk
about knocking through the right side of tent to join up with
the trailer. I might get a waterbed.

It's actually really luxurious here. We have drinkable tap water, internet, decent kitchen and a washing machine. It's not even too unbearable hot in the shade. The howler monkeys wake you up in the morning but you need to be getting up anyway so they're totally my bros for making me not miss breakfast.

So far I've been out in the field once and didn't take my camera, so no monkey photos for you today. I get 1 day off for every 2 days in the field, and even though I have chores they re done pretty quickly so I have time to do other stuff, but the days in the field are exhausting. It's basically 15 hours of full on crashing through the jungle trying to keep up with the monkeys, craning your neck when they get high, and takes lot of mental concentration as well as you try and ID the monkeys and keep up with what they're doing. So far I've been bitten by numerous insects and arachnids, pooed on by a monkey, scratched by rash-raising plants and it's wonderful and I want to stay here lots and do it loads more.