Lion tailed macaque
Working in the office provides many different challenges, advantages and disadvantages compared to field work. One such advantage is being able to attend some primate related conferences and show off some of the hard work we have been ploughing through.
Last month i had such a pleasure and was able to attend the Primate Society of Great Britain’s (PSGB to those in the know) Spring Meeting. This was a great chance to hear about some great projects going on right now, from chimpanzee nest locations to lemurs showing self control and, perhaps most appropriately with the current climatic conditions, how rainfall affects baboon behaviour.
The odd but wonderful Javan Leaf Monkeys
I was also able to meet up with some old friends of the Barbary macaque project including Stefano and Pawel (who gave a great talk on chimpanzees vocalisations and male social bonding) who have both left Barbary macaques behind to currently study chimpanzees. And also Stuart Semple who is of course helping to guide Laetitia through her current PhD project. These conferences do provide a great opportunity to both network and catch up with old friends which would otherwise be difficult. Ideas can be swapped and hearing about the work of other researchers can open your eyes and mind to ideas you had not have considered before. The event took place at Howlett’s and Port Lympne parks in Kent and we were also given behind the scene tours of the parks.
A quick train change on the way home gave just enough time to sample some of the finest products of Belgium
I also gave a poster presentation at the conference, discussing some of the work i am currently examining on male mating behaviour and what they understand of female sexual swellings. See below if you want to examine the poster. I am also proud to say my poster gained an honourable mention and narrowly missed out on the poster prize so i was very happy to have travelled over from Germany.
Conference Poster
I would also like to mention that Gavin Thurston and his excellent camera work will be popping up all this month on BBC series Planet Earth Live. He is filming the Toque macaques, a relative of the Barbary macaque and i am sure will capture some amazing footage. Good luck to Gavin and his team in Sri Lanka! For more information head here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qj06z
Chris