New Arrival: White-Belted Black and White Ruffed Lemur

Now on show at Wildplace is a new addition to their lemur collection, a young paid of the Northern or White-Belted Black and White Ruffed Lemur, Varecia variagata subcincta. This is one of three subspecies of V.variagata, plus the only other species of Varecia, the Red Ruffed Lemur V.rubra. Bristol Zoo has two V.rubra that are hand tame and are used in their daily animal displays, but these are non-breeding animals. The Wildplace pair will hopefully breed in the future, as they are a young pair.

Lemurs 2: The Mouse Lemurs

Grey Mouse Lemur

Perhaps least changed from the stock ancestral to all other lemurs, the mouse lemurs or Cheirogaleids are a diverse group of small to extremely small, nocturnal primates. They include the smallest of all lemurs, the Pygmy Mouse Lemur Microcebus myoxinus, and here at Bristol we have a succeful family group of the almost equally minute Grey Mouse Lemur, Microcebus murinus.

Review of the year part 2: In-situ projects

As well as the various education and captive breeding programs run from Bristol, the zoo is also involved in several in-country projects all over the world, usually as part of a consortium with other zoos and conservation organisations. Here are some of the projects we are involved in, and links to where you can find out more.


Cameroon

orphaned chimps at AAA

The bushmeat trade in Africa is one of the major threats to Africa’s wildlife. Contrary to what is commonly believed, this is not a subsistence-level practise, rather in many cases a supply of expensive wild meat to the cities for high-end purchasers. As a result of the hunting of primates especially, a large number of orphans result. These tend to be kept for a while and then eaten later, but with improved law enforcement many are now confiscated and go to various rescue centres. Since 1997 Bristol has been working with the charity Ape Action Africa, providing veterinary support, education training, and publicity for support and care, with possible eventual rehabilitation, at the Mefou National Park. There are already a small number of regular visitors, and the potential for increasing eco-tourism is certainly there.

Update: Return of the deadly teddy bears

This is a repost of one of my earlier posts on this blog in honour of our latest arrivals - newborn Pygmy Slow Lorises Nycticebus pygmaeues. Hope you like it!

Pygmy Slow Loris N.pygmaeus

Prowling through the forests of West Africa and Asia are a group of nocturnal primates distantly related to bushbabies and lemurs. Varying in size from a half grown guinea pig to a ring-tailed lemur, the lorises are an ancient group, with a fossil record dating back 40 million years or more.

New Arrival: Macho monkeys

Male Drill

In every book on primates there will be a picture of the insanely coloured mandrill, Mandrillus sphinx. With its vividly coloured face and rear end, it always attracts attention (and giggles from the kids). Not nearly as likely to be shown is its less vividly coloured northern relative, the Drill, Mandrillus leucophaeus. Two of the latter have just arrived at Bristol, and are the first monkeys a visitor to Bristol will encounter. Drills in general body size are comparable to Mandrills, but instead of the blue and red face of Mandrills, the have a black face with a white chin, set off with what looks like pink lipstick. The anogenital region is coloured in muted red and purple, instead of the matching blue and scarlet of the Mandrill. As the largest of the Old World monkeys, Mandrillus sp, especially males, have a great presence and give the impression of a calculating intelligence as they view visitors and their surroundings.

New World Primates 9: They came by night

A.griseimembra

The last of the New World primates we have at Bristol can be found in Twilight World. The Grey-legged Dourocouli, Aotus griseimembra, belongs to a widespread group of monkeys which have, uniquely for higher primates, become nocturnal. There are of course numerous nocturnal primates in the Old World, incuding the bush babies of Africa, lorises of Asia, and many lemurs in Madagascar, but they all belong to a group generally referred to as the Strepsirrhine primates. These are distinguished from monkeys and apes, the ‘higher’ or Haplorrhine primates, by features of their face and skeleton, most obviously the moist, dog-like noses and tendency to rely more on scent and less on vision.

New World Primates 8: Paging the wicked witch

Male White-faced Saki

On one of the islands in the central lake live a family of one of the most distinctive of South American primates, the White-faced Saki Pithecia pithecia.The local name for these monkeys sounds like they would be more at home in the Wizard of Oz – they are called flying monkeys because of their prodigious jumps (up to 10m have been recorded). In the wild they have a wide distribution through the rainforests of South America, so they are listed by the IUCN as of Least Concern. Most of its closest relatives are also in reasonably good shape, although one, the Buffy Saki Pithecia albicans, is listed as Vulnerable.

New World Primates 7: Love Monkeys

C.cupreus

It is a few days late, but it is appropriate that Valentine’s week should feature one of the most closely affectionate of the monkeys, the Red Titi Callicebus cupreus. Bristol currently has a pair, but people often walk past their enclosure because they are also among the most secretive of monkeys. Their preferred habitat is dense tangles of vines, edge forests, bamboo groves and similar habitats, where they can go about their lives undisturbed. Unlike many other species, they avoid other primates and do not move around in mixed associations, instead pursuing their lives in small family groups of a pair plus up to three offspring.

New World Primates 6: Howling for help

One of the South American monkeys Bristol has been most successful with is one of the most resonant voices of the rainforest, the howler monkey. The IUCN red list has a total of thirteen different species, which are found from Central America as far south as Argentina, wherever there is suitable forest. The species we have at Bristol is more or less the only one likely to be seen outside a South American zoo, the Black and Gold Howler Alouatta caraya. They get their name from the sexual dimorphism in the species – adult males are jet black while females and juveniles are golden brown.

Female A.caraya

New World Primates 5: Squirrel Monkeys

S.sciureus

On one of the islands in the lake can be found our group of a very familiar, but little understood, small monkey, the South American Squirrel monkey Saimiri sciureus. Squirrel monkeys are widely spread throughout central and South American rainforests, but until recently it was thought that there were only two species, The South American S.sciureus and the Central American S.oerstedti. More recent work has elevated some subspecies to specific status, and identified other new forms, with the result that there are now considered to be at least five species, some of which themselves may contain several subspecies.

New World Primates 4: Brown Spider Monkey

A.hybridus

As you enter the zoo, the first large enclosure you encounter contains two young male Brown Spider Monkeys, Ateles hybridus. This Critically Endangered monkey originates from Columbia, where it lives in an ever decreasing area of primary rainforest.


Spider monkeys can be thought of as the ecological equivalents of the apes (especially the gibbons) of the Old World – large bodied fruit eaters with complicated societies. They spend almost all their time high in the canopy on a continuous search for fruit of numerous species, and are very important seed dispersers as a result. In hard times they may also eat leaves, some insects, or even decaying wood, but without an extensive variety of fruiting trees they cannot survive for long.

New World Primates 2: Lion Tamarins

Golden Lion Tamarin

Here at Bristol we currently have on show two of the four living species of Lion Tamarins, leontopithecus. These are a now aging pair of Golden-Headed Lion Tamarins L. chrysomelas, and more importantly a growing family group of Golden Lion Tamarins, L.rosalia. The other two species are the Black Lion Tamarin L. chrysopygus and the Black-faced Lion Tamarin L. caissara.

New World Primates 1: Goeldi's marmoset

Mother carrying baby - December 2011

I am going to start 2012 with a series on the eight species of New World Monkeys we have here at Bristol. Between them the species Bristol holds covers all five families of the Platyrrhine monkeys, the scientific term for the monkeys of Central and South America. Their ancestors are believed to have crossed the Atlantic from Africa around 40 million years ago, and they have either developed or retained several adaptations that distinguish them from the monkeys and apes of the Old World. They do not have as good colour vision as Old World monkeys for example, with only two colour sensitive cone types in the retina in males, and either two or three cone types in females. In addition, their physiology is different, and they require much higher blood levels of Vitamin D than Old World monkeys do. Before this last requirement was realised, it was hard to maintain Platyrrhine monkeys in good health at high latitudes, even with exposure to sunlight, as they were very prone to Vitamin D deficiency diseases.


The first of our monkeys I am going to cover is surely one of the cutest, the Goeldi’s marmoset Callimico goeldii. In December our pair had another baby, bringing the family group to six. Goeldi’s are rather untypical marmosets, and appear to have adapted to a habitat and lifestyle somewhat different to the other marmosets and tamarins of South America. They exist at low densities throughout their range, and often associate with other species as they range around their territories. They prefer a densely vegetated understorey, usually staying under 5m from the ground, and streamside vegetation, regenerating secondary forest (including abandoned farmland) and bamboo seem to be preferred. The range extends from northern Bolivia into southern Columbia, east of the Andes.