Bye Bye Bonobo

Ok, a week out of DRC and I have to wrap up my posting from things over there. First off, afternoon delight in the swimming pool:



Second, I spend years trying to find a good test of ape 'hiding' behavior and hippo proves it in a single photograph:


Lastly, ombwe. I totally forgot to mention him somehow which is strange given that he was living with us for 2 weeks.


Ombwe showed up at the same time as another baby and the vet staff were short-handed during the nights. So, Kara and I typically took him between 4:30 and 9, fed him some sugar cane, a bottle of milk and put him down for the night.

When he showed up he didn't have a name so kara I and I were calling him homeboy, just kidding around. But then after spending some time with him Fanny (the vet) let us help choose his name. all of the bonobos are named after cities/towns in Congo so we began our search of the map. We were certain there were no Congolese cities called homeboy but did our best to find a close second. Miraculously, we came across Ombwe. To us he will always be homeboy.

he's a cutie.

Photo Lag...

Ok, I have crossed the congo river and am as safe as one can be in the company of 150 chimpanzees. But, of course my photos lag behind so I reserve the right to post a couple more from lola before my blog is up-to-date again. I will probably post more bonobo pics but for now i just found these interesting.

This moth is dead, but beautiful...and big!


This spider is also dead....and big. maybe beautiful? i don't think so. at least I didn't when I decided that only one of us was going to continue inhabiting my room.


couldn't pay me a thousand dollars to actually let go....

The sweet side of cats....


The dark side of cats...


whatever...i guess they're pretty tasty.

back to primates next time.

Tonton sings

Since I posted once about singing I thought I may as well do one more. This is Tonton, enjoy...

from above

My dad and I have been looking at satellite images of Lola ya Bonobo so that I can give him an idea of the layout here. After getting the coordinates right it turns out you can see a lot. So, I've gone ahead and dropped pins on a few places of interest around the sanctuary and have also added photographs at each spot. You can check out the map here if you are interested in taking a look around...


Here is an example shot, looking out over the water (which appears black and speckled with lily pads from above).

The images are really small due to my upload constraints but I hope it gives an idea. They haven't driven the google street-view car through here yet so you'll have to make do. it was hard enough just tagging the place...

Mamas singing...

Singing is a part of life in Congo. There are countless moments when I overhear people singing as they work, as the walk, whatever. Nobody is ever conscientious about singing in public so its something that you can't help but hear as you walk around. The other day the Mamas were singing together and were kind enough to let me record a little bit. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do...

Snake pics from hippo's last trip

So this happened on Hippo's last trip here but he's allowed me to share the footage. This unfortunate cat wasn't part of the inner circle of house cats here and fell prey to a python. But, I guess the cat was a bit more than the python could handle as it died in the process of eating it. I guess the cat had been entirely swallowed and the python was trying to regurgitate it when it died.

After seeing these I of course got paranoid about pythons around here and starting reading about how they kill children all the time. i guess they suffocate you via constriction and then take their time with you once you've asphyxiated. ugh.

i'm sorry....nothing else gross this year. you can thank hippo for letting me get away with this one.

Mama and baby....

A quick pic of the reunited pair as promised.