Updates from the field

This season (US summer, CR wet season) has been a busy one in terms of visitors. Each director is visiting, as well as students and researchers. In the next few weeks we’ll be publishing “director spotlights” in which we get to know our directors a little better.

First up is Dr. Marcela Benítez, who was here in July. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia State University working with both wild and captive capuchins.

CM: What attracted you to this project?

MB: Well, after spending a couple of years in Ethiopia I wanted to work somewhere Spanish speaking…it was mainly luck–I ran into Thore and Jacinta at a conference, and it just happened!

CM: What’s your favorite food?

MB: That’s funny…I was actually just texting this to my sister. Argentinean barbeque.

CM: Who’s your favorite football player?

MB: Lionel Messi.

CM: What are you most excited for in the future of this project?

MB: In the sort of near future…to create a fully sustainable research station.

CM: If you had any other job besides primatologist, what would it be?

MB: My backup to academia…would be an academic advisor to Tinder. I could tell you why if you want! It’s interesting to see how people make decisions on mates based solely on visual cues and no further information. It’s the closest thing we get to using sexually selective signals. I think it’s cool to see what people are attracted to when you take out the accessibility of social information. Or write a young adult fiction fantasy/novel. Like Harry Potter but better. (Proceeds to explain outline).

CM: What got you into primatology?

MB: I wanted to study marine biology. Dolphins. And that became increasingly more difficult. I got involved in comparative cognition at the Yale lab as an undergraduate. I loved it! I worked for a lab manager for a year and I decided I wanted experience with wild primates and to go back to Argentina. I went to work in Formosa (link) with the owl monkey project and loved it. That’s my life story! In those two years I fleshed out my research interests (the relationship between hormones and cognition) and that’s when I stumbled upon Thore and Jacinta’s research. I worked with them….and the rest is history!
That’s the boring answer. I’ve always been interested in people…understanding why people behave the way the way they do. Working with monkeys I noticed many similarities.

CM: Describe your academic career in five words.

MB: Lucky, monkeys, poop, stress, adventure.

CM: What’s the best museum you’ve been to and why?

MB: The Field Museum in Chicago. I thought they did a good job making it interactive and bringing anthropology to life…in a way that’s often difficult to do.

CM: What’s your opposite of a pet peeve (some little thing you see that makes you happy)?

ETJ: Super nerdy data organization things!

MB: When people struggle to organize, struggle writing grants, I love organizing it all.

ETJ: Whiteboards.

Hey everyone!

Here, a few months later than promised, is an update on the C@T project. In January we started taking behavior data on our best-habituated group, named Tenori. Alex and Juan Carlos have been hard at work habituating Mesas group so that we can start taking data on them in the next few weeks.

Last week we were invited to give a talk on our research methods at the Universidad Técnica Nacional in Liberia. We got to demonstrate the way we collect data using Epicollect and Animal Observer, and Juan Carlos taught students how capuchins extract the seeds from Luehea candida fruit. It was great getting to meet new people and answer questions about what we do.

Jahmaira and Celia got the opportunity to visit the site of Dr. Susan Perry, Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project, to observe the capuchins there and see how her group collects data. The Lomas moneros were excellent hosts and we hope to see them again soon.

The current field crew out here in Taboga is as follows: Alex Fuentes (joined June 2017), Juan Carlos Ordoñez (joined July 2017), Courtney Anderson (joined August 2017), Jahmaira Archbold (joined October 2017), and Celia McLean (joined January 2018). Although Taboga is a bit isolated, we amuse ourselves by going out to dinner at the end of the month, making aluminum can “crafts”, and watching cooking shows on Netflix.

That’s it for now, I hope to report soon that we’re taking data on Mesas group!

-The C@T moneros

Well, sort of live. There will be a certain amount of delay depending upon when our IT person gets around to posting the WhatsApp updates from Taboga. Think of it as WhatsApp meets the newspaper. Or, perhaps, a monthly magazine.