Blog Archives

Trading Places

9/30/2012

On August 23rd, the day Lolita's first adult tooth poked through, I decided it was time for her to start playing in the outside cage. We had constructed a "meeting room" within the large cage where she could be safe from Chiquito's teeth, but the problem was that he could still pester her through the chainlink with his long arms and tail. And he did. Lolita spent the afternoon wailing to be saved, and it was nerve-wracking for everyone...except, apparently, Chiquito.
I figured I'd wait until Lolita had more teeth to defend herself with, and life continued as it had with Lolita in the house full time.

Two weeks later on September 9th, with Lolita well on her way to a full set of adult teeth, I tried again. This time I put her playpen into the cage-within-the-cage to give her a sense of security and familiarity. The problem was that Chiquito could reach it, and he yanked it over to the common chainlink wall. Lolita screamed like she was being killed.
Unwilling to be outwitted by a monkey, I secured Lolita's playpen to the outside wall. But the psychological damage had been done, and I succumbed to the wailing sooner than the first time.

It took me three weeks to come up with Plan C, but the third time was a charm. I put Chiquito in the small cage, and Lolita in the big cage. Chiquito objected for a few minutes, but not loudly. And since we haven't found anything he won't do for a raisin, Chiquito entered the small cage again this morning for Day Two of trading places.

Chirping for someone to save her.

Hanging out and getting some exercise.

Safe from Chiquito's long arms and tail.

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Watermelon Party

9/17/2012

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     I've had people ask me if Chiquito or Lolita would swallow small plastic objects or other non-edible things they find in the cage or on the ground, and the answer is no.  The monkeys are smarter (at least in this regard) than young human children, who have an inclination to ingest pennies...and wedge peanuts up their nose.
     The monkeys seem to have most of the same food preferences we do. They don't eat the banana skins, or the peanut shells, or the watermelon rinds. But they do swallow seeds whole, which is their primary ecological role. "Their propensity to swallow and pass seeds intact - and their wide daily ranging patterns - make spider monkeys especially effective seed dispersers for an enormous number of plant species in most Neotropical forests. Spider monkeys are also likely to be key dispersers for plants that produce large-seeded fruits, as they are the only arboreal frugivores capable of routinely swallowing and passing those seeds." [Spider Monkeys; Behavior, Ecology and Evolution of the Genus Ateles, edited by Christina J. Campbell, 2008]

      It has been interesting to watch Lolita learn to eat solid food. Peeling a banana was not intuitive, nor did she know how to hold a piece of watermelon still on the rind and gnaw on the juicy part. We cut her cross-sections of banana that we haven't peeled yet so she'll see the fruit in the center. And we let her play with the watermelon rind, but also hand her melon balls.
     Chiquito, who is older and more experienced, doesn't play with his food. But he definitely has his own techniques. He bites into the side of a banana to open the skin - no dainty peeling for him. And he eats the white part of the watermelon flesh as well as the red. The seeds? They pass...

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Mind Games

9/16/2012

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I see my favorites. Peanuts and raisins.

Maybe I can get my hand in there...

Just like my old baby bottle.

I'm always reluctant to give the monkeys objects or expose them to experiences they wouldn't have in the wild. Which doesn't make much sense since they nurse(d) from baby bottles, cover themselves with blankets, and swing from tires among other "unnatural" things. Not to mention that they've been raised listening to human language...Chiquito is undoubtedly more bilingual than I am.
So after visiting The Jungle Place in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and seeing how fascinated the spider monkeys there were with stainless steel mirrors and big plastic balls, I ordered some primate toys that neighbors are muling down in a couple of weeks.

Eating a peanut in the shell.

And today, when Chiquito grabbed an empty bleach bottle after Paul finished cleaning his cage I thought, "Hey, I'll make an enrichment toy out of that." We drilled a couple of holes in the bottom, but trying to get raisins through them would have been more frustrating than fun on the first attempt. So I took the cap off and loaded a dozen raisins and a handful of peanuts-in-the-shell.
For one worrisome moment I was afraid Chiquito would get his hand stuck in the bottle, but he's a smart monkey. Tomorrow I'll leave the cap on and let him figure out how to unscrew it...

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A Sensuous Morning

9/14/2012

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     It was a sensuous morning for Chiquito. Chiquito's testicles (or "eggs" as the Ticos call them) have grown noticeably in the eight months we've had him, and with them his libido.
     Breakfast is a usually a big deal, but today Chiquito was more interested in humping Paul's leg. (Paul...always a good sport... doesn't discourage this natural adolescent behavior, although he does try to distract Chiquito.)    A short time later I watered the climbing vines I recently planted around the cage, and Chiquito had his way with my armpit.  When I'm holding him he puts his face under my arm, sniffs, and gently licks. But since he couldn't reach with his nose and mouth, he improvised.
     Touching someone's armpit and smelling your fingers is considered rude by human standards, but we try to go with the flow. So when Paul said, "Hey, maybe I'm missing something?" I laughed and obliged him. Exactly what fascinates Chiquito is still a mystery.

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In the jungle with the monkeys.

Michele Gawenka

Jane Goodall has always been my hero, and working with primates an aspiration. Africa wasn't in the cards the summer I turned 16, when my parents offered to send me to volunteer, and there was only one class (in physical anthro-pology) when I wanted to study primatology in college.
Decades later my husband and I retired in Costa Rica, and this is our journey with spider (and howler) monkeys.