I Talked About SMARTA and Ruffed Lemur Color Vision A Lot This Week

Duke Lemur Center presentation cover page

I gave a 30 minute presentation on Tuesday at Duke Lemur Center this week for their "Lemurs, Science, and Beer" seminar. The title of the talk is "Do You See What I See? Studying Ruffed Lemur (Varecia spp.) Color Vision using SMARTA".  In this presentation, I did a brief talk about how color vision came to be and what the world might look like for ruffed lemurs if they cannot see red or if they can see red. Then, I talked about my research questions and how I try to answer them by using SMARTA.

Hey, I know this Raymond Vagell guy! 

The event had a great turn out. It even attracted a few public attendees as I had advertised the talk on Facebook and Twitter. I'm glad that I was able to talk about what SMARTA is and how it is used to study ruffed lemur color vision to the DLC staff because they've seen me conducting my research but probably doesn't really know what I'm doing. Thanks to all my friends who came to support me. 

That's Carme using SMARTA

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to talk about SMARTA and ruffed lemur color vision to Scaling Stem participants who came to visit DLC. I talked about how SMARTA came to be and how it was built. Then, I showed the participants how SMARTA works. Because this is a women in STEM group, it was apropos to have Halley demonstrate how SMARTA works. Without skipping a beat, Halley did her color vision trials perfectly and her enthusiasm wow-ed the crowd.

Giving a talk to Scaling Stem participants. Helping me demonstrate SMARTA is my lemur assistant, Halley

On Thursday, I gave a brief talk to a group of college freshmen that are interested in animal cognition studies. Though the talk was brief, I was able to share some tips on designing animal studies and things to expect when working with animals. This time, Carme helped demonstrate SMARTA. She also wow-ed the crowd with her cognitive skills in discrimination tasks.

Giving a brief talk about my color vision project 

This has been a long week! But, I am glad that I was given the opportunity to talk about my research and sharing my stories not only to the DLC staff, but also to educators and students. This week is also my last week at DLC for awhile. I am flying back to NYC and will be back to DLC periodically until the study is done around August. My assistant will be continuing this study while I am away. Thanks to Dr. Erin Ehmke for giving me the opportunities to share my work with the DLC family, educators and students.

Lemur, Science, and Beer Talk: April 5th, 4PM at Duke Lemur Center

Come join me on Tuesday, April 5th at 4PM where I will be presenting a talk on my ruffed lemur color vision study titled "Do You See What I See? Studying Ruffed Lemur Color Vision using SMARTA. I will talk about the ruffed lemurs and their color vision, what SMARTA is, as well as how this study is conducted.

This event is open to the public and will be held at Duke Lemur Center in Lemur Landing (where the gift store is). I've started a Facebook event for this talk. Hope to see you all there!


Duke Lemur Center 

3705 Erwin Rd, Durham, NC 27705

Phone: (919) 489-3364
Lemur Landing is directly right in front of the parking lot.

Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready

It's been a few weeks since my previous post. We are still working with Carme, Pyxis, Celeste, and Pandora. Next week, we will be working with a new female. Great progress with Carme. Pyxis ... not so much. Celeste and Pandora are both starting to touch the screen so it's heading to the right direction.

Carme had improved tremendously since my last post. We have been training her daily to reinforce her to correctly station in front of SMARTA and to touch the squares deliberately instead of nonchalantly putting her hands between the squares or just touching the sides of the square. We also turn off the screen for a few seconds when she touches the incorrect stimuli or when we want to extinguish a certain behavior. It seem to have helped and by early this week, Carme is less frantic when using SMARTA and very rarely is swiping her hands all around the screen. When she make an incorrect choice, sometimes she gets a bit frantic but generally a major improvement than what she used to be a few weeks back. We thought that turning the screen off and turning it back on when she's paying attention to the screen helps to teach her that when she makes a mistake, it will take a few seconds before she can try to get a craisin. Of course, you don't want to turn off the screen for too long or it would stress the animal out. We generally turn it off for less than 5 seconds unless the animal is not paying attention to the screen (eg. looking at another animal, listening to alarm calls, etc).

By the end of next week, Carme will be done with the study as she would have done enough sessions for my data collection. I have enjoyed working with her. While she was a bit challenging to work with earlier on, and that she had a lot of behaviors that we had to extinguished, she was such a fun participant.

Week 4: Girls Just Want To Have Fun

Girls, they want to have fun.

Oh girls just want to have fun.

They want to have fun!

- Cyndi Lauper

YES! The girls just want to have fun. I'd say SMARTA is pretty fun for Celeste, Pandora, Pyxis, and Carme! And for some reason, Cyndi reminded me of the red ruffed lemurs.

This week I got to work with 2 new red ruffed lemurs. Pandora and her one-year old daughter Celeste joins the rotation to be part of my SMARTA color vision study. Celeste was very excited on her first day and her enthusiasm continues to the second day. She is currently my youngest participant. Celeste's mother, Pandora, was equally enthusiastic to participate in the study. Both had participated for two days and will continue their sessions next week.

Caught Celeste mid chewing craisins. Looks like she's very excited.

Pandora in her red (green? dum dum dum) perch.

Pyxis continues to be cautious around SMARTA and gets easily distracted by her mate and son. Pyxis is a stark contrast from Pandora (and Celeste) where they are not distracted by the males and instead focus intently on SMARTA. Though at the end of the week,  Pyxis started to approach SMARTA immediately when the sessions start. Currently, we are only reinforcing her to sit in front of SMARTA so she'll station perfectly in front of SMARTA before we start reinforcing her to look at the screen. Towards the end of the week, Pyxis has started to pay attention to the SMARTA screen. These are crucial small details that we have to pay attention to so that we are not reinforcing bad or superstitious behavior when using SMARTA. This is Pyxis's second week and even though she doesn't share the same enthusiasm as Pandora and Celeste, it is very common for animals to be apprehensive to novel objects (especially a towering object that makes noise). Luckily, Pyxis is whistle trained (meaning she know what a whistle cue means) so it is very easy to reinforce her and that she probably knows she is doing something right when she hears the whistle. Craisins help a lot too ;)

Pyxis starting to pay attention to the tablet on SMARTA

Carme continues to have at least 2 sessions per week since I came back to Duke Lemur Center. We addressed her left hand preference and her tendency to touch the left square at the beginning of each trial regardless of what color the square is. We don't know if she is has trouble using her left hand to reach to right square or if it's a superstitious behavior. Over the past few weeks, she had progressed tremendously and we feel like she finally "got it" this week. We ran a few testing trials with her and I think we are comfortable enough to say that she had graduated from training to fully automated testing. She should be on testing sessions next week.

Carme looking intently at the red square

Whistle Training with Carme

I talked about bridging here, where a bridge is a stimulus that "bridges" a correct response to a reinforcement (usually a food reward) and is almost often an auditory stimulus such as the sound of a whistle, clicker or praises (Good girl!). A bridge is usually an anticipation of something positive going to happen and bridging tells an animal that they did the desired behavior and a reward is on its way.

Carme touching the red square on SMARTA

At the beginning of this study, we thought that the sound of the conveyer belt inside SMARTA is a good bridge for the ruffed lemurs. We soon learn that it wasn't the case, and that they are probably not paying attention to the sound of the conveyer belt or that they might need to be trained to recognize that the sound of the conveyer belt is a bridge.

As most ruffed lemurs at the Duke Lemur Center are whistle-trained, we have incorporated the whistle as a bridge when we train them to use SMARTA. Here's a short video of Carme doing a red and gray discrimination task. Notice that the moment she touches the red square, a whistle is used to bridge her correct behavior to a craisin that falls off the chute a few seconds later.


Imagine without the whistle. Carme touches the red square and looks to the left. A craisin falls off the chute. The duration between touching the red box and looking to the left only takes a few seconds but that is also how long it takes for SMARTA to dispense a food reward. Carme might then associate looking to the left with a food reward, or any other behaviors she did after touching the red square.

Another positive aspect of using a whistle as a bridge is that we can tell the lemur almost instantaneously that they did a desired behavior as opposed to just giving them a food reward. Without a bridge, it might take more time for a lemur to learn the correct behavior or worse, associating an incorrect behavior with a food reward.

Week 2: MORE Pyxis and Carme

This week I worked with Pyxis and Carme again. Currently they are the only two red ruffed lemurs that I am working with but once Carme has been trained, we will train more female lemurs. I hope that this birth cycle brings more female babies. Would be nice to have a large sample to continue as my PhD project.

Pyxis being reinforced to pay attention to the touch screen.

Pyxis is starting to learn that the big black box with a red screen is giving her treats but she hasn't quite associate the apparatus with food reward just yet. We have to rapidly reinforce her (giving her a lot of treats) when she is in front of SMARTA so she learns that the black box is giving her food rewards but it is imperative that she stays in front of SMARTA for that to happen. It may take well over a few weeks for her to make that connection, but in due time she will learn to associate SMARTA with food reward and mentally stimulating activities (think video games!).

Carme continues to be trained that she needs to touch the red square to get a food reward. She associates touching a square for food reward but still hasn't make the connection of touching the red square for food reward. She is close though as most of the time, her "incorrect" choices are just her trying to lean on the screen (her initial touch) and then touching the red square. Usually when she lean on the screen, she is touching the side of the screen with the incorrect choice. Because SMARTA is programmed to react to the initial touch, it will register as her "choice" thus resulting in a lot of incorrect choices should we run the test trials with her right now.

We are also training her that she can lean on SMARTA but she'll have to touch the acrylic part (shell) of SMARTA. Most of our sessions now are slowly approximating her from touching the middle of the screen to moving towards the middle of the square so that she knows she has to deliberately touch a square to make a choice and not just wily nilly touching the screen for food reward. We think it'll take another week or so before she is ready for testing.

Carme touching the center of the touchscreen but
some part of her hand is in the red square.

Carme touching the center of the red square. We are slowly trying to approximate
her from touching the middle of touchscreen (pictured above) to touching the center of the square.

I will be working with Pyxis and Carme again next week. On Monday, we will have a routine animal welfare observation. I think this is an annual routine, which I had one last year. It's good to know that Duke cares about the welfare of animals used in research.

Week 1: Carme & Pyxis

I worked with Carme on Tuesday and Thursday. She definitely understands that she needs to touch the screen, nay, she needs to touch a square for a reward to dispense. We don't know if she fully understands that she needs to touch the red square though. We will continue to train her so that she understands that needs to touch the red square for a food reward. We are also training her that her initial touch on the screen is her discrimination task "choice". Actually, let me back up a little. Carme usually stations in front of SMARTA and would put one of her hand on SMARTA as support and then the other to make her discrimination task "choice". As you can imagine, this pose a problem when her hand is on the screen; she would immediately get a trial correct or incorrect because her hand is on where the stimulus will appear. We wrapped up with her on Thursday and are quite confident that it'll take a few more sessions with her before she finally understands her task.

Carme using her hand to support herself on the SMARTA when doing discrimination tasks.

I only got to work with Pyxis on Wednesday. This is her first session with SMARTA so what we did was reinforced her when she gets close to SMARTA to investigate or when she looks at the screen. We interspersedly alternate a blank screen and a screen that is fully red to elicit attention from her. We do this to all the lemurs we train because we want them to know that this black box has a screen that will display stimuli. How easy this information is processed by the lemurs is debatable but one thing is for sure, using a well timed positive reinforcement to guide them through a task is imperative.

Oh I have a new part time research assistant and my full time research assistant will be here in March. Happy days!

North Carolina State Of Mind

I'm baaaaaaaack!! I took a long vacation from Duke Lemur Center to go back to NYC while my assistant continued my study until December last year. I'm back to continue my study with my last 3 lemurs. Carme, the red ruffed lemur is almost done. She just needs to finish her Phase 2 testing trials, which I think will be done before March.

I have a new research assistant that will be joining me early in March and we will be training Pandora and Pyxis to use SMARTA before running the trials. I am hopefully that these 2 lemurs will cooperate because they have done cognitive research before. Although, if experience had taught me anything, I probably shouldn't expect anything. Ha!

Today is my first day back at DLC but I didn't get to work with any animals. Instead, I spent most of my time fixing and servicing my apparatus. Unfortunately, I found out that one of my electronics for my apparatus broke! I had to order the part ASAP but chances are, I probably won't be able to work with the lemurs tomorrow. It's supposed to snow tomorrow and Monday as well, and from what I heard, usually roads are pretty treacherous this part of the country after it snowed. So, I probably won't be able to work with the lemurs at least until next Tuesday. Bummer! Oh well, at least I am all settled and comfortable at my hotel. More time to spend with my friends and my lil girl Luna.

Special shout out to JetBlue and their Jet Paws program. I brought Luna with me and she had a very pleasant flight out of JFK to RDU. If you are flying with a small dog, I'd suggest flying with JetBlue.

I Am Looking For Research Assistants: Ruffed Lemur Color Vision

Interested in an independent and rewarding research experience? Want to learn how to train animals? Be involved in a fun research? Love working with lemurs? I am looking for 2 research assistants to help me with my ruffed lemur color vision study at Duke Lemur Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Position Description:
We are seeking 2 highly motivated research assistants to help train ruffed lemur (genus Varecia) to use the Subject-Mediated Automatic Remote Testing Apparatus (SMARTA) for a color vision study at the Duke Lemur Center. This is an ideal opportunity for undergraduate students planning to apply to graduate programs in anthropology, psychology, and animal behavior. You will learn methods in behavioral training using positive reinforcement, and will have the opportunity to use a fully automated, novel apparatus we have developed specifically for color vision testing. The research assistants will work closely with the principal investigator, as well as the Duke Lemur Center staff, who will provide necessary training. Assistants can expect to work three hours each day on weekdays (Monday to Friday; Generally between 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM).

Qualifications/Experience:
Applicants should have a background in animal behavior or related field. Because we will be using a novel apparatus, the ideal applicant will be someone who is quick thinking and is willing to troubleshoot. Experience training animals (even dogs) is ideal but not necessary. This position is not physically demanding, however, the research assistants will need to move the training apparatus around enclosures (about 20 lbs).

Please go to this listing for more info about the positions: Volunteer Research Assistants For Ruffed Lemurs Color Vision Master’s Project at Duke Lemur Center.

You can read more about my ruffed lemur color vision research here.

You can see photos of my research, which was featured in Duke Lemur Center's Instagram page here.

You can read about apparatus, Subject-Mediated Automatic Remote Testing Apparatus (SMARTA) here.

I Was Featured on Lemur Conservation Network (LCN)

Thank you Lemur Conservation Network (LCN) for featuring me in your blog. I talked about my research background and my current research on color vision with the ruffed lemurs at Duke Lemur Center.

Click here to read more.

It's Been A Long, Strange Road.

Today is my last day at Duke Lemur Center. It's been a long, strange road. I had initially thought this would be a 2 month project but ended up taking 5 months (and more). Although I am leaving , this project is still ongoing. My research assistant Isabel Avery, along with Meg Dye (DLC lemur trainer) will be training my lemurs until they are ready to do the color vision tests. Out of 9 individuals that I am working with, only 2 are ready and is currently participating in the tests. The other 7 individuals are still being trained to do these tests. When the other 7 individuals are ready to start their tests, I will fly back to North Carolina to conduct these tests.

This has been a long journey. I remember hating the fact that I have to be in North Carolina for two months but this place grew on me and even though I have been here for five months, I am enjoying every day of it ... except the fact that I miss my husband and my cats. My first few weeks in North Carolina was hard as I had to adjust to living in my hotel room and not spending time with my husband and cats. I wasn't use to being by myself.

But I had fun. I did a lot in the area. I went to the flea markets, the farmers' markets, museums, antique stores, cafes, restaurant, shopping, and oh yes, SHOPPING. I thought being in Durham would be boring but it turns out that it wasn't that bad. I kept getting asked by Uber drivers whether Durham was a big change for me. It wasn't. Actually, I really like Durham.

And then I adopted my dog, Luna. She had been my companion and pretty much became my unofficial emotional support dog. Adjusting to being a dog parent is definitely challenging and comical at times. Dogs are much more demanding and needed much more work and attention compared to cats. I have raised both kitten and puppy now, and I must say ... cats definitely have evolved to be much more self sufficient than dogs. But Luna is a sweetheart. She's the impossible girl.

I am looking forward to return to Duke Lemur Center to finish up my research later this year. But for now, I am grateful for having spending time with my friends here in North Carolina as well as looking forward to spending time with my family back in NYC. Till then ...

Cheating The System

OK this is too good not to share. It turns out that some of my lemurs have learned that the payout for paying attention and complete a task correctly for a food reward is too much of a hassle. Instead, using their primate ingenuity, they have devised a fail safe plan. What are they doing?

They have started putting their hands on the middle of the screen or on one side of the screen and just stares at the chute. You see, the trials run automatically, and when they just leave their hands in that position, they either hit the correct or incorrect stimulus. As the trials cycle through, food reward will drop down at about 50% chance (at random). So, instead of paying attention to the task, the lemurs are just hoping they would by chance touch the correct stimulus. There is also one lemur that would continuously smash its hand all over the tablet non stop, hoping by chance it would hit the correct stimulus. Picture someone smashing all the buttons in an arcade machine ...

Well, one more UI update on SMARTA coming up this weekend so I can train them to correctly do the discrimination task.

Day 4: Moving Right Along

Because some of my lemurs needed to be indoors around 10 AM today, I was able to worked with 3 groups. Generally, when I am done with 2 groups, it is almost noon and that's when I have to end my research. Today however, I worked with individuals that had progressed the furthest in that 3 groups. I was able to run testing sessions with 4 individuals today and trained 2 to target. The other 3 individuals were omitted from my study today because their progress is the slowest. Admittedly, most of these individuals that are on the testing session have not learned to target the red stimulus for a food reward. Instead, they have only learned that they need to touch the screen (or any square) for a food reward. This is the phase when the lemurs will eventually have an AHA! moment and realized that they will only get a food reward for touching the red stimulus. This study is progressing in a good pace. I expect most, if not all of my lemurs will be moving on testing phase by the end of this month and I should wrap up my data collection either mid or end of September.

Also, have I mentioned it's HOT HOT HOT!!!

Black church ladies be like ...

Week 2: Lemur Training

My lemurs are learning. Some of them are learning fast and some of them are barely getting a hang of it. I have already started testing phase with two lemurs because they have learned to use the apparatus. Any progress is good progress, I guess.

I understand that not all lemurs will have the same performance rate and I accept the fact that some may never learn. My biggest fear is that I will have a small sample size and that all of them are dichromats.

I flew back to NYC for the weekend to see my husband and cats. I have missed them very much. I am grateful that I am about an hour away by plane and I can fly back to see them whenever I want.

Looking forward to work with new individuals next week. It's always interesting to see how they explore a novel object (my apparatus) and how they respond to it.

Raymond Vagell: Current Research

My master’s thesis project is on color vision in ruffed lemurs (Varecia spp.) with Dr. Andrea Baden. My research project will be conducted at the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, North Carolina, where I will be training and running behavioral trials. Using multi-field approaches, I am trying to answer my research questions by incorporating computer programming, robotics, psychophysics, and animal training. I built a subject-mediated automatic remote testing apparatus (SMARTA) to test the Varecia spp. that I will train subjects to use before running trials to test whether they can perceive and discriminate the color red. I will also take blood samples from my subjects to extract genomic DNA for genetic analyses in the Primate Molecular Ecology Lab (PMEL) at Hunter College. I hope that this research can further elucidate whether color vision genotypes in Varecia spp. are expressed phenotypically.

The Usability Of My Apparatus

You don't really hear about "usability" when talking about animal researcher as well as animal enrichment. Usability is the ease and learnability of human-made objects. Much is known and researched on when it comes to the usability of human-made objects intended for humans. Take for example, the usability of a door. Doors with a handle is instinctually something you pull. Doors without a handle but a flat metal plate is instinctually something you push. But how do we arrive to that conclusion?

Doors with handles. Do you push or pull? Why?

It's all about usability research and a lot of testing on potential subjects. You gather as many relevant info as you can, use those knowledge to build an object and then have your subjects use those objects while you observe them. This is how you would test your prototype. I wasn't lucky enough to test the usability of my apparatus with the ruffed lemurs before I brought the apparatus down to Duke Lemur Center. However, I have enough data to help me designing and execute my apparatus. Information such as their height when sitting on the ground, what height is their eye level, as well as the best way to stop these lemurs from perching on the apparatus so that they do not pee or poo on the apparatus.

SPOILER ALERT: They are still perching on the apparatus but they are considerate enough to not pee or poo on it ... yet.

However, watching these lemurs use my apparatus for the past 2 weeks has given me valuable information. There are some many variables that go into play on how they learn and utilize my apparatus. Differences in ages and amongst individuals are evident. I won't divulge more into this, but I think it is something interesting to look into as well as important for animal enrichments.

Some of you might be wondering. How do I know this? Well, someone very close to my life is a usability researcher so naturally I have inherited some advice and knowledge from him.

Craisin Acceleration: Why Size and Weight Matter

For a few days, the food rewards inside my apparatus was not dispensing properly. I had wondered what the problem was and like a good scientist that I am, I wrote down all my hypotheses and tested them.

The food reward is too sticky thus sticking to the cup: It was definitely not that the food reward is too sticky. Almost all of them would fall out of the cups.

The distance of cup to chute was too far, therefore the food reward is falling outside of the chute: Wasn't the distance of cup to chute either, although I thought initially it was so as this apparatus was designed with small grapes in mind, not craisins. The food reward was falling into the chute most of the time but there are a few times when it would fall after it passes the chute. It's not a significant reason why the food reward is not dispensing properly.

However, I had an Aha! moment when I realized that the food rewards that didn't get dispensed properly are small pieces of craisins. WEIGHT! It was weight. I need to have craisins that have enough mass to fall from the cup as soon as it drops down and accelerate into the chute. I bought some "whole craisins" which are basically craisins from whole large cranberries instead of varying sizes. I'm happy to report that the food rewards have been dispensing properly today.

Size and weight do matter when it comes to being dispensed properly in my apparatus. Have I mentioned how much they LOVE craisins?

Weekend Distraction: Luna

I adopted a Chihuahua x Pomeranian (Pomchi) puppy over the weekend. I am so used to being surrounded by animals (mostly cats) that being in a foreign place and cooped up in the hotel room was starting to take a toll on me.

Meet Luna Vagell, my emotional support animal. She is a ball of energy (when she's awake, after she had finished her meal)!

Rainy Day

It rained today. A much needed respite from this hot weather.

It is wet, cold, and dreary today in Durham, North Carolina. A stark contrast to what it was this week when it was sunny and temperature in the high 80s. Wet, cold, and dreary is definitely my kind of weather. I managed to only sweat a little bit today thanks to the cool weather. Although, since I need to wear latex gloves during training, my hands feel like they are constantly submerged in a pool of water. I got a built in self moisturizing system haha!

I met two new lemurs today. I can definitely see the difference in learning and curiosity to novel objects amongst different age groups. So far, all my animals have been very cooperative and it was very fun training them to use my apparatus. Or maybe they are just training me to give them food rewards.

I seem to have figured out how to fix my food reward dilemma. Stay tuned. Will let y'all know if resolve it tomorrow. One more day till the weekend!

Indoor Training

I moved my training to indoor enclosures today because of the glare issue (I addressed that on yesterday's post). When indoors, the tablet is able to display the stimuli correctly and is more visible than when outside. If you have used your electronics (cellphone, tablet, laptops, etc ...) outdoors when it is sunny and there's glare, you'll know what I am referring to.

I have also made a few changes in the phone app interface but I realize after using it today that it is still not resolved. I had made it show a number when I tell my conveyer belt to "rewind" or "dispense" but it seems like I wasn't able to reset the number back to 0. Instead, if I rewind past the number 0, it stays at 0 when I dispense so that still throws me off with the number of food reward dispensed. I guess I'll have to put in a reset button. Why does it matter to know how many food reward I still have inside the apparatus?

When you train an animal and you give them a food reward, you are not only rewarding the animal but also communicating that the have done a desired behavior. The absence of a food reward during early training sessions will make rewarding and chaining behavior difficult as you always want to reward an animal when they did the appropriate behavior. If not, that will confuse an animal and might make them not associate a desired behavior with food reward. However, because the sound of the conveyer belt is a bridge and trainers can hand the animals a treat, the absence food reward might not be that critical if a trainer offers a food reward right after the sound of a conveyer belt. I might be wrong though ...

I also included a haptic feedback on the phone so whenever I press dispense, I'll feel it. That way, I can focus on the animal while I make my phone app dispense a food reward. That feature worked great and I was able to keep my attention on the lemur without having to look down to make sure I have pressed the "dispense" button.

The craisins I use as food reward have started to stick on the cups because of the heat and humidity (it's sugary). The small grapes that I initially wanted to use are sometimes too big and would get stuck on the cups. Now, the craisins are also getting stuck on the cups. I'm thinking maybe I should use freeze dry fruits but I'm not sure they are as palatable and yummy for the lemurs as these sugary sweet rewards.

Tomorrow, I return and continue training the lemurs indoors. 

This really cute jumping spider decided to check me out as I wait for my shuttle to go back to my hotel. Hey there, lil' guy.