Raymond Vagell - Ruffed Lemurs Color Vision Instagram: July 2nd, 2015

Time to put a face to the person you've been talking to this whole week. What about a #TBT? Here's Kizzy and I when I first met her and her boys at #DukeLemurCenter last year. Photo by @prancingpapio, taken by David Haring. #lemurs #lemur #lemuria #lemurian #animaltraining #positivereinforcement #primate #primateofinstagram #primates #ruffedlemur #blackandwhiteruffedlemur #varecia #variegata #prancingpapio #Asian #AsianAmerican #academic #academia #scientist #scientists #LGBT #QueerScientist

A photo posted by Duke Lemur Center (@dukelemurcenter) on Jul 2, 2015 at 5:15am PDT

Color vision is very important in primates. Presumably, the ability to perceive red is advantageous for finding ripe fruits in ruffed lemurs as they are frugivores. But do you know that all male ruffed lemurs cannot perceive red? The gene to perceive red is a sex-linked trait in ruffed lemurs and only females can inherit this gene to perceive red. The inability to perceive red is commonly known as "color blind" or dichromat while being a trichromat generally means an individual can perceive red. Most color blind humans are also males because in humans, trichromacy is also a sex linked gene. My work here in Duke Lemur Center is to investigate how ruffed lemurs perceive their world. Specifically, who can perceive red and who can't. Please Like and Comment. Tag your friends if you think they like lemurs! Photo by @prancingpapio #dukelemurcenter #lemurs #lemur #lemuria #lemurian #animaltraining #positivereinforcement #primate #primateofinstagram #primates #ruffedlemur #blackandwhiteruffedlemur #varecia #variegata #colsci #color #colorvision #colorscience #psychophysics #psychophysiology #psychology #anthropology #primatology #SMARTA #prancingpapio

A photo posted by Duke Lemur Center (@dukelemurcenter) on Jul 2, 2015 at 8:24am PDT

#butfirstletmetakeaselfie Thanks everyone for following my work and your enthusiasm with these wonderful lemurs. Here's a silly picture of me and Puck. I work with the ruffed lemurs indoors so the picture quality tends to be bad because of lighting. However, that is good for my research because too much light will cause glare on the surface of my apparatus and the lemurs won't be able to see the screen. Photo by @prancingpapio #dukelemurcenter #lemurs #lemur #lemuria #lemurian #animaltraining #positivereinforcement #primate #primateofinstagram #primates #ruffedlemur #redruffedlemur #varecia #variegata #rubra #colsci #color #colorvision #colorscience #psychophysics #psychophysiology #psychology #anthropology #primatology #SMARTA #prancingpapio #selfie #selfies

A photo posted by Duke Lemur Center (@dukelemurcenter) on Jul 2, 2015 at 11:53am PDT

Here's one of the black-and-white lemurs being trained to target a red square on SMARTA. Most of the time, the ruffed lemurs like to sit on their legs with their body erect when working on the apparatus. Imagine a human watching TV, sitting upright on the floor. Sometimes the lemurs would put one of their hand on top of SMARTA. In some rare cases, they do some really cute postures just like this one. Please Like and Comment. Tag your friends if you think they like lemurs! Photo by @prancingpapio #dukelemurcenter #lemurs #lemur #lemuria #lemurian #animaltraining #positivereinforcement #primate #primateofinstagram #primates #ruffedlemur #blackandwhiteruffedlemur #varecia #variegata #colsci #color #colorvision #colorscience #animals #animal #animalcognition #cognition #cognitive #psychophysics #psychophysiology #psychology #anthropology #primatology #SMARTA #prancingpapio

A photo posted by Duke Lemur Center (@dukelemurcenter) on Jul 2, 2015 at 3:24pm PDT