This morning, my physical anthropology class met at the Houston Zoo for a field trip in lieu of the usual classroom lecture. This was quite a different experience than any other field trip I've taken to the zoo, mainly because this was the first time I took such diligent notes while at a zoo, but also because the last field trip I took with a class to the zoo was when I was in first grade. I never thought I'd take a college class that would have a field trip to the zoo.
We observed primate behavior at the Wortham World of Primates and walked around the different enclosures where the primates lived. The zookeeper was very helpful in explaining all the different primate habits and behaviors we saw in the hour we were there, and meanwhile my classmates and I were frantically taking notes. I learned a lot of interesting facts about some of the different primates that reside at the Houston Zoo that I didn't really know about before.
A mother orangutan and her offspring at the Houston Zoo
Did you know that orangutans generally live a solitary lifestyle unless it is a mother living with her child? There are two types of orangutans- the Sumatran and the Bornean, and in the wild the two species do not naturally interbreed with one another. While I was there with my class, the zookeeper had to lure the two orangutans out of hiding with fruit popsicles, she told us that the orangutans love them, which was rather amusing since I would not have guessed popsicles if someone asked me to name one of the orangutan's favorite foods.
I observed the red-tailed guenons who live in the same enclosure as Allen's Swamp monkey and these two species seem to get along rather well. The red-tailed guenons have tails that are nearly twice as long as the length of their bodies but their tails aren't prehensile, which means the tails don't act like an additional arm or leg. These guenons moved around a lot and seem to have infinite amounts of energy!
Red tailed guenon!
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