By Jessica Reemeyer, a PhD student at McGill University
I spent the month of May 2024 doing field work at Lake Nabugabo in Uganda, thanks in part to an excellence award from QCBS. The work itself was exciting and gratifying but the most unexpected and entertaining part of being at the field station was sharing the space with a group of vervet monkeys. Below are a series of photographs I took while trying to document the monkeys’ shenanigans.
Photo 1: This monkey is eating a piece of pineapple he stole from one of us after we left a bowl unattended outside for only a few minutes. We learned very quickly that the monkeys are always watching for an opportunity to steal and we needed to be on guard, even if we could not see the monkeys watching us.
Photo 2: This monkey may have been hoping we would leave another bowl of pineapple unattended on this table, but he was out of luck on this particular day.
Photo 3: During our stay at the field station there was a massive wave of dead flies. I’m not an entomologist so I am not sure the cause of the dead flies or what species they were, but the monkeys treated it like it was a buffet. They seemed to quite enjoy licking the flies off the walls and floor on which they were accumulating.
Photo 4: This monkey attempted to enter the kitchen while I was sitting inside eating my breakfast. Not pictured is the day before when a monkey not only successfully entered the kitchen, but also managed to steal eggs while I had my back turned. Turns out monkeys love slurping raw eggs and they make a big mess around the spot when they crack them open.
Photo 5: On a day when I had the afternoon off and was relaxing in our cabin, I heard a knock at the door. I assumed it would be one of my colleagues but as I drew the curtain, I was greeted by this monkey. They ran off when I opened the door, so I’m not sure what they wanted!
Photo 6: This behaviour is called a “mount and thrust” according to the primatologists at the field station. I was sitting drinking my morning coffee when this show unfolded in front of me. The still image doesn’t do justice to the chaos of the first monkey staring at me, the second monkey running up and initiating the “mount and thrust”, the third monkey running up and screaming at the couple, and all three of them running off abruptly. The entire encounter lasted no more than 5 seconds.
Photo 7: After completing our field work, we went on a safari tour of Queen Elizabeth National Park where we also got to see vervet monkeys. These monkeys were much less entertaining than the ones at our field side, as they seemed much less habituated to people, but I did manage to capture a photo of one of them before they ran off.
To conclude, field work in a new location is always exciting and you never know what challenges you will face, whether it be a lack of consistent electricity or monkeys trying to steal your food.
About the author: Jessica Reemeyer is a PhD candidate in Dr. Lauren Chapman’s lab at McGill University. Her research primarily focuses on the effects of environmental stressors on the physiology and ecology of Canadian freshwater fish Species at Risk. She has been told her funniest fun fact is that she reliably gets hiccups every time she eats bread.
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