Surprise trip to Italy

When we planned the trip to Prague I didn’t think we would be traveling outside of the Czech Republic much. Maybe one side trip to Germany since it was so close. I was wrong! Mike’s brother and his brother’s fiancé decided we should go to Italy. So we took the weekend and drove across Germany and Austria to northern Italy.

We stayed at an amazing little hotel on the side of a small mountain of vineyards. The view from the balcony on our rooms was amazing, we were looking right at the Dolomites (a very famous mountain range). Of course Mike and I could not resist being that close to amazing climbing and not partaking so the following are some pictures of the view from our hotel and then a gondola ride into the Dolomites and well as some rock climbing there.

A little time off

I had an amazing summer, but sadly was not able to spend time with my boyfriend Mike since he had been working in Michigan while I did research in North Carolina. So we planned a reunion trip! We decided to go visit Mike’s brother and his brother’s fiancé who have been living in Prague in the Czech Republic for the past 5 months. This trip was both of our first times in Europe. We were only able to stay 10 days because of Mike’s work schedule, but it was an amazing taste of Europe and I know we will be back. Here are some pictures of our time in Prague…there are more pictures to come of our little road trip to Italy :  )

Orangutans, Gorillas, Bonobos, oh my!

 

A large male orangutan with one of the females.

I had an amazing summer working with the lemurs at the Duke Lemur Center in North Carolina, but eventually it was time to drive home. It would've been a hard 15 hour drive but I knew that I would be taking a pit stop for a day at the Columbus Zoo so it wasn't so bad. Over the summer I met a wonderful woman at the Friends of Bonobos board meeting, she works in the grants department at the zoo and she invited me to come visit their bonobos. Since I have never actually meet any of our great ape cousins I jumped at the opportunity. I spent just over an hour with each of these beautiful species (an hour a piece was not enough time and I could've spent all day with any one of them) and then I had to continue on my way home to Michigan. The following pictures are of my first encounters with orangutans, gorillas, and bonobos!

 

Adolescent Gorilla 

A baby gorilla, it was hard to take a picture because she was running around so much.

Bonobos

Here is a link to the Friends of Bonobos webpage to find out more about one of our closest primate relatives (equally as related to us as Chimpanzees) and how we are trying to help them.

http://www.friendsofbonobos.org/

How do Lemurs say goodbye?

It was the last day for one of the researchers I was working with so we took at trip to the lemur center for him to say his goodbyes to the lemurs. We went into the free-ranging enclosures and were able to see these amazing creatures very close. Some of the lemurs were out in the forest.

I didn't realize it at the time but it was also my farwell trip to the lemur center. I finished testing a few days after this and started work on the paper about our research. I loved my time at the Duke Lemur center this summer and I will definitley go back, even if it is just to visit the lemurs!

Coquerel's Sifaka

Free-ranging Brown Lemurs

Free-ranging Ringtailed Lemurs

Baby Red Ruffed Lemur

Fellow researcher Aaron and I on his last day at the Duke Lemur Center

Love to the Lemurs

I have finished my project here at Duke and now I am helping to put together the manuscript. Since I just finished my final presentation Friday I now have the chance to actually work on posting these pics. So enjoy the lemurs, these photos were taken on the "field trip" that my program took to the lemur center. In these pictures you will see the Red Ruffed, Black & White Ruffed, and Coquerel's Sifaka lemurs. Also David Brewer, one of the research managers and I. David has been so helpful this summer, he knows how to coax even the most stubborn or shy lemur into participating in my test!

Papers, Papers, PAPERS!

So it has been a month since I last posted but my life has been very busy. A few weeks ago I got word that the paper I submitted after I completed my research project last summer (on the Opportunistic Defense of Bracken Fern by Patrolling Ants) has been accepted for publication! So of course that meant more work, I had to go through and address the concerns of two reviewers, changing or adding things and defend my paper against some aspects I am not going to change. It is a stressful experience, but very exciting as well. Officially last night at 9:50pm I finished and it has now been sent back to the editor and I am anxiously awaiting the final decision.

Not only have I been working on a paper but also reading lots of them. Now that I have decided to pursue my passion for primates in graduate school I have read over 20 papers concerning primatology this summer and have more that are just waiting to be embarked upon. I have high hopes of designing and carrying out another project next summer (Lemurs!) so I want to start now so that I can make sure that I could get a publishable unit of data. There's always more to do but it is so overwhelmingly incredible to think I could contribute to this field someday that I don't mind being busy.