Our Kids.

Ok, our Kids but not quite. Left is Moñito and right is Tutti, seen polishing off some spaghetti, Tutti Italiano. But who is that below? I can’t rightly tell you yet. These are our three youngest children.
We received a call earlier in the week. Some good people in Caracas want to bring this little fellow to us for care. As far as we know, he has no name. He is scheduled to arrive about mid day tomorrow. We have been asking around for a name. Gabriela suggested a few but said whatever it should be a short one. We are thinking of calling him Erik, if he really doesn’t have a name. Look at the difference in the color of the coats. Young ones tend to be much lighter in color and get darker as they grow older. ‘Erik’ has a very light, fine coat, rather like Sussy. I think he will retain a lighter coat. But more news as it comes. We look forward to him arriving and meeting his donors.

Fraught!

I will not hide from you that we have had a couple of fraught days. (Full of or accompanied by problems, dangers, or difficulties).
Yesterday, we had a visit from a large group of Capuchin monkeys, wild ones from the forest. Their interest was of course, Pancho. They surrounded his enclosure for most of the day. Finally two of the most adult of the raiding party had enough courage to descend onto Pancho’s enclosure. Pancho, unaware of their evil intention, rose to the top of his domain to greet the visitors. He was immediately attacked by them and sustained a wounded tail. It was my unpleasant job to chase them off after this assault. We quickly treated Pancho’s wounds and an examination today revealed that all is well; the bites have healed up well with no sign of infection.
Today, I became aware of two wild Howler monkeys, in a tree above the enclosures of Schatov, Lucio and Moñito. This is a tall mango tree that also straddles the home of the Maniña family, Eslabon, Miss Billy and Tutti. Needless to say there has been considerable agitation, and much calling and pacing up and down as they glance upwards at the intruders. My presence did not at first calm the disquieted children. But later the visitors realized there was no profit in remaining, decided to move on.

With both groups of invaders, I am sure that we have not heard the last. This is the mango season, a fruit that all monkeys love and we have about 500 trees. This is a good reason for them to visit. But again this is a good time to look for a mate when food in the forest is plentiful.
I have just a couple of comments. Through all this, Maniña, swung backward and forwards in his hammock, totally unperturbed by the activity around him. What a cool guy.
I have photographs of the action but of insufficient quality to publish. Please excuse.

Butter would not melt in his mouth.

Last Sunday Moñito had a family visit. Carlo and Patricia who rescued him from a building site again came to see him. They were here just a few weeks ago also. In the meantime we discovered that they had been married. Naturally everyone at Cañaote was thrilled and wished them happiness. But talking of happiness, one had to include Moñito, Lucio and Schatov, who all share Garden Lucio, in that wish. The kids were clearly pleased to see their friends and played hard all morning.

What a wonderful day we had. The children were so active and obviously pleased to have the visit. I think we all had a lot of fun. David and I were pleased to have the opportunity to congratulate them both on their marriage that was really great news. Moñito was definitely thrilled to have company, and I am certain that he remembered both of them. Lucio and Schatov were in good form; they are such good friend and good for each other because they exercise well and learn during their play.

Carlos and Patricia left us some wine. We enjoyed a bottle of the wine that night and sent a toast of good wishes to them for their future together. It means a lot to us to have their friendship and the care that they show to Moñito and the other children.
We have two pictures of Moñito. One showing him in the thick of the fray and the other a portrait where he is looking as though butter would not melt in his mouth.

Happiness is bun shaped.

I know I have said it before but it is always the first time for me. Every time I see Marco I am amazed because he is always so much larger. I can scarcely believe that this is the little boy who lived at Canaote with us. Marco, who used to sit on my shoulder and sleep on my pillow. Marco, who grew to young adulthood in the care of that wonderful mother Sussy. Marco, who was only a mere handful weighing in at 500g when he arrived here. Gabriela has just taken these wonderful photographs of him. But that is not all. Marco went to live with Vicky in Manrique, the home of Gabriela. I have told you already that it was love at first sight. Vicky and Marco adore each other. Now look at that photograph of Vicky again. She has an expression of sheer bliss and her eyes are closed. You notice the extended stomach and the breasts? I do believe that this young lady is expecting an event. More news on that as it comes.

'Pyow-pyow': how the putty-nosed monkey tells its friends there's a leopard coming

Putty-nosed monkeys combine signals in a limited repertoire to convey complex messages. But see below, Howlers are also great talkers.


A troop of monkeys in west Africa has been found to use different combinations of calls to convey different meanings in what is believed to be one of the first experimental demonstrations of rudimentary language ability in wild animals.
The putty-nosed monkeys living in Nigeria were already known to use different alarm calls to warn each other about the presence of predators, but now scientists have found that their linguistic ability goes a step further.
Male putty-nosed monkeys are able to combine different types of alarm calls to indicate their identity, what they have seen and whether they intend to flee – and all of this information is recognised by other members of the troop, a study has found.
Klaus Zuberbühler, of St Andrew's University, said his research into wild putty-nosed monkeys demonstrated that their linguistic ability shows intriguing similarities with human speech, in that they can combine sounds to convey various meanings. "In linguistics, 'morphemes' are usually defined as the smallest meaningful units in the grammar of a language. Our research revealed some interesting parallels in the vocal behaviour of forest monkeys and this feature of human language," he said.
The monkeys have two basic alarm calls – "hacks" and "pyows", and they use them to warn each other about different predators – for example, a "pyow-pyow" signals a leopard. Dominant male monkeys are also able to combine "hacks" and "pyows" into a unique sequence that conveys important information, such as "I am about to travel, follow me", according to Dr Zuberbühler, who, with his colleague Kate Arnold, carried out the study published in the journal Current Biology.
The scientists proved their theory by playing audio tapes of "pyow-hack" sequences made by a dominant male and observing the reactions of other troop members. The behaviour of the monkeys followed the scientists' predictions – for instance, that they would all move in response to the signal to travel.
"What we showed is that it was this call sequence alone that was sufficient to trigger group travel," Dr Zuberbühler said. "Most primates are limited in the number of signals they can physically produce due to their lack of tongue control. The only way to escape this constraint may be to combine the few calls they have into more complex sequences.
"In other words, it may be harder for non-human primates to evolve large repertoires than to evolve the ability to combine signals. Hence, the evolution of combinatorial signaling may not be driven by too many signals, but rather by too few."
The ability to combine different sounds or vocalization was believed to be an important step in the evolution of human language. According to this theory, at some point it became more economical to combine existing elements of communication, rather than adding new ones, because the repertoire was already too large.
But, Dr Zuberbühler said: "Our research shows these assumptions may not be correct. Putty-nosed monkeys have very small vocal repertoires, but nevertheless we observe meaningful combinatorial signalling."

* The study of the putty-nosed monkey was carried out in the Gashaka Gumti National Park in Nigeria.
* Naturalists observed the animals using two distinct alarm calls – "pyow" and "hack" – in non-random sequences.
* Further studies revealed that the monkeys were using different combinations of calls to express various specific meanings.
* These include: hack-hack-hack-hack: "There's an eagle over there!"
* Pyow-hack-hack-pyow-pyow-pyow: "I've seen a leopard, let's move away!"
* Hack-hack-hack-pyow-hack-hack-hack-hack-hack "There's an eagle over there, let's move away!"

Yes Howlers do talk and do communicate vocally.


I first noticed the ability to vocalize needs in Howler monkeys, many years ago. We notice that when a monkey had been separated from its parents it suffered great grief for several weeks. This was demonstrated by pacing up and down in its enclosure and repeating the same sounds over and over again. The sound approximated to (what oh) with the ‘oh’ drawn out for at least two seconds. Following that we notice a sound indicating pleasure, especially when a desired food was presented, although it can accompany any pleasurable experience like being with a friend (human or monkey) or place that makes them feel happy. A repeated whoop whoop whoop sound indicates danger and displeasure, this is not necessarily a message to the troop it can be just an indication of displeasure. Remember that Howlers have a special extension to their hypoid bone. In their case it is very large and allows a great noise that can carry for up to 3 km. This also means that the sounds that they make are fairly deep throated. The thing which I have found most extraordinary is that this language is universal. We have monkeys here in our facility that come from all over but the language is just the same. They have many expressions and they do have the ability to produce quite a range of different sounds. I would really like to find a research student with the interested to analyze their language. I do not have formal linguistic analytic ability but I would love someone to do this work. Yes Howlers do talk and do communicate vocally.

Sophie is mending well.

Sophie suffered a bad patch in her health after having freed herself into the wild forest. I have reported on this previously. Just when she started to recover from the parasites and the dehydration that she incurred, she contracted a new health problem. A week ago I noticed an area on her right foot where the skin was broken. I thought little about this, thinking that maybe she had torn her foot on the bamboo walkway. The next day a observed blood on that foot and damage to one of her toes. Clearly this was something more serious. We took samples to examine under the microscope but we were unable to detect any pathogenic activity. This was not a fungal or bacterial infection. We decided that it was a self infected wound in response to the irritation of a broken skin. We treated her with oral antibiotics and topical iodine spray. This has been effective and the condition has been limited and we are simply waiting for nature to complete the healing. She was avoiding placing that foot on the walkway but now she is walking normally again.
She is almost back to her old self. Gabriela contributed a brilliantly colored hammock and Gilda; Lucio’s family brought a large bag of colored plastic balls and rings. Sophie is happily playing with this fun setup and is much more active. Naturally she has been sad and lonely since Totto freed himself into the wild but we are hoping that someday soon we can find a new companion for her.
Our photograph is Sophie. Her appetite is good. She is feeding well and putting on weight again.

We don't all look alike. Do we?

Well of course that's Maniña top center and Schatov bottom right. But I bet I didn't have to tell you that because you recognized them. Their faces are very individual but nevertheless there are people who don't seem to tell them apart. Maybe they are the same people who think that all Chinese look alike. Maniña is slightly older and slightly heavier. But they are the two largest Howlers that we have here. Make the facial comparison yourself and comment what difference you find. There are things true of both. They are both in great condition. They both have great beards. They are both very hansom. They are both personality plus. What more can I say.