During my training I was too nervous to pay attention to everything that happened around me and I have few stories. It’s right now when I’m starting to relax and really begin to know each monkey as an individual with personality and especial features and to see their behaviour easily. Nevertheless, let’s try (and if any of my old fellows reads this and wants to contribute with their own stories they will be more than welcome).
The fright of Joan
This happen during my first month in Morocco, when I was starting to train the focals and I followed the same monkey that any of my colleagues so I could ask if I had queries about any behaviour or whatever. I was with the PhD student following Joan, one of the females of the green group and we were in the Gorge. We were talking about stuff while Joan, with her typical face of where-am-I , turned stones looking for food. Suddenly, she turned one and opened completely her eyes while ( I promise) she jumped pretty scared. Then she ran away screaming. Then, we went to see what she had seen and we found a little snake trying to escape. For me the funniest thing is that Joan was so scared of that tiny reptile given the ability she has to handle scorpions and eat them!
Bart, the naughty
Bart is a juvenile male of the tourist group, very skilful in stealing every food that you have on your pockets or backpack in addition to tourists’ bags of peanuts or whatever.
My first experience with this was one of the first days that I finally started to collect real data and the PhD student asked me if I had wheat to make the food tests. Silly me, I said yes, while taking out the bag with it from my backpack and holding it into my hand. Of course, one second latter, Bart jumped like a ninja-spiderman, grabbing my bag and spreading the wheat all around.
A couple of days ago, while the PhD student and me were sitting around the boxes we use for a cooperation experiment, I was immersed in my own world and so was the PhD student. And, as it usually occurs, whenever you are not ready is when things happen. So, Bart came silently and grabbed the bag with peanuts that I had on my pocket and ran away with it up to a tree. I swear he was laughing of me while he tore the bag to get the peanuts…
The PhD student has also been victim of this tricky macaque. A couple of weeks ago, for example, he stole the notebook she uses to write down the controls and stuff that we have to do. He ran away with it to a tree and tried to eat it. As he saw that it wasn’t edible, instead of just leave it, he started to tear the pages while the PhD student looked at them blaming him. Fortunately, the important pages remained untouched.
But with difference, the most stupid thing this monkey has done, as far as I know, occurred three days ago, when the PhD student took out a tissue from her pocket to blow her nose and Bart jumped and grabbed it!
Accepted as a new member of the green group
I think this happened the “last day” of the girls (The two Germans and the Ohioan) in the field. We were in UK, close to the parking, each one doing our business when Noddy, one of the males, started carrying an infant and came trotting to me while he was teeth chattering. He was inviting me to do a sandwich! Unfortunately, I had to reject it (a matter of scientist ethic) and a meter or so from me he sadly changed the direction of his steps. Even though I couldn’t accept his invitation I felt really proud of such an honor.
Just because it’s not food it doesn’t mean they won’t grab it!
As I told before when speaking about Bart, young macaques not only enjoy stealing us food, but any other stuff. Then, for example, Dakota, one of the juvenile females of the green group stole a glove of the PhD student and was playing with it with the other juveniles for a long time before one of them let it fall to the ground and I could recover it (yeah, as a good assistant it was my commitment to do it…yeah, one of that moments that you think “so, Have I studied a degree and a master for this?").
There was a time that the macaques in the tourist group were specially playful ( meaning “toca huevos de pelotas”) and were trying to steal everything we had. So, I don’t know how, but Saana, a one year old female stole my radio, which is pretty much her size! She went up to a tree and start to bite it while looking at me (smiling, I swear). After a while, she was fed up with it and dropped it: Fortunately it was still working…
But the best story about this happened with Luca, a juvenile macaque from the tourist group which is pretty weird and that doesn’t see very well. We were on the boxes of the experiment and the Californian was preparing some food for them, cutting it with a knife. He put the knife on the top of the box to take anything else and then Luca jumped, grabbed it and started to run with it while we looked at him with faces similar to the one on the famous Munch painting “the Scream”. Nonetheless, after few meters Luca dropped the knife and no macaque nor tourist got hurt (Ufff...).
A pretty bad combination
Leila is a low ranking female of the tourist group that spends most of her time alone with her infant or with other low ranking macaques like Osiris or Chocobon.
She is one of my favourites, not only because I usually feel like a low ranking primate, but because she is very aggressive when someone is too close to her infant. The problem is that her infant loves to jump on us and be around so, sometimes, without even pretending it, you end up with a little macaque jumping on you and a very angry mother “open mouthing” and screaming to you if she doesn’t try to slap you too!
And this is pretty much what I remember right now. I will write another post if I remember more or if any of my old colleagues wants to collaborate I would post it too.
And now, I dedicate this last paragraph to the Briget Jones’ diary issues (I’ll call it Ms.Imara diary part), meaning what happens behind the scenes or what happens out of the field. So, I want to give a warm official welcome to my new colleagues, the French ( they are now three out of five here) and the South Carolinian (from now on only S.Carolinian), and also to the one coming tonight (no name yet, I’m not sure about his provenance). Also to send a warm greeting to all my old fellows, cause now that I see other people occupying their places on the bench of the flat upstairs and I see their pictures on the wall I miss them, even if we didn’t know each other too much and I was so quiet at the begining ( I was a little bit less at the end, god damn it!). And welcome home to the Californian that arrives today to his hometown after a long odyssey.
And that’s it. Till the next post, dear reader!
Siempre nos quedará Chefchaouen.
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