Monkey Blog

 This is turning into a blog about monkeys.

This is the silvered langur baby that was orange a couple of months ago.

Best friends?

Baby black-and-white colobus / mantled guereza / Abyssinian colobus

Another Baby Langur

My previous post was More Baby Langurs, plural, which was kind of a mistake, but it's true. There are two babies here:

This one is older and has lost a lot of its orange hair.

Some, but not all. Note mom's foot on the tail.

More Baby Langurs

The Columbus Zoo seems to have a successful breeding program for silvered langurs. There have been one or two babies every year for the last several years.

The babies are orange at first.

Kids sometimes want to go exploring on their own.

Who needs a vine when there's a tail?

The langurs are good photographic subjects, which is why I've posted about them a few times already. There is often something going on, such as eating or watching mice, and babies are fun. Often, there are two groups: A bachelor group and a group of mothers, babies, and youngsters. They're indoors in winter, and the glass is not annoyingly reflective. The lighting is good, depending on where the monkeys are in the enclosure.

Funny

 All photos are from the Columbus Zoo.

Alva, a wolverine. You can guess the sex.

A silvered langur performs a scene from Julius Ceasar

Tuna; Barry or Sammi; and Marlin in close formation. They have name tags; Marlin's is red. (African penguins in the Animal Encounters Village)

Marlin, Barry, and Tuna in spread formation.

I first thought Connie was sucking on the fence structure, but there's a feeder there. (Asian elephant)

The good stuff is always at the bottom. (dromedary camels)

Joanie, a black bear

 

Scientific names

There's fascinating reading material below.

I didn't intend to get sucked into a vortex of scientific names. The trouble began with photographs of zoo signage, particularly in reptile exhibits. I took pictures of signs as I went along so that I could identify the animals at home when I tagged my photos. Then I deleted the pictures of the signs.

It wasn't long before I started keeping the sign pictures, still with the goal of tagging photos with correct animal names. At first I wanted only the pictures from the signs and the animals' common names. Then I thought I should keep track of scientific names. Two zoos might have the same animal (not the same animal, not at the same time, anyway) labeled with different common names. The scientific name would let me associate different zoos' animals. I can't say this has ever helped, but I'm in the vortex, so...

Here's Varanus salvator from my previous post.

Asian or common water monitor (Columbus Zoo). Or Khomain's water monitor.

Exhibit sign

I link my posts to pages on zoos' websites, and the Columbus Zoo's site has an entry for Khomain's water monitor, Varanus salvator khomaini. Hmm. Do the sign and website represent the same lizard or different lizards? Is one out-of-date? Has the nomenclature changed? The color patterns around the lizards' mouths are different. Is that normal variation? Does the difference imply different species?

A Web search for Varanus salvator khomaini gives hits for Varanus salvator. But wait! There's this, too:

 

"Khomaini" gets only a handful of hits and is apparently an incorrect spelling; there's no "h." A three-part scientific name indicates genus, species, and subspecies, and The Reptile Database, which I take to be reliable, says there is a monitor called Varanus salvator salvator. Does Varanus salvator identify the same monitor?

The concept of nominate species seems to be relevant, although I'll be darned if I can understand this definition. Crowd-source sites (Reddit, Yahoo Answers) provide a simple definition: The nominate species is the first species identified, and the assigned subspecies name is the same as the species. In our monitor's case, someone identified Varanus salvator as a new species. Later, subspecies were identified, so Varanus salvator became the nominate species and took the name Varanus salvator salvator. So Varanus salvator and Varanus salvator salvator are likely the same animal. Varanus salvator komaini appears to be a name that is no longer in use.

Then we have this langur.

Two signs, one photo. Same animal? Probably. One sign is outdoors and the other is indoors. I can't say for certain that the two exhibits are physically connected, but I'm pretty sure they are. I would be less flummoxed if the common names were the same or the scientific names were the same.

A search for "Trachypithecus cristatus ultima" yields fewer than 30 hits, so "ultima" appears to be out-of-date. For an example of recently-changed taxonomy, see this Wikipedia article about langurs (lutungs). A zoo's signs can easily become out-of-date. [Also, the hyphen is an abomination, and "leaf" is redundant because all langurs eat leaves. Grammar and punctuation are more of an attractive nuisance than a vortex.]

My conclusion? Taxonomy is complicated.

2019 favorites

Of photos I haven't posted, here are some of my favorites of 2019.

Juvenile silvered langur (Columbus Zoo)

Aldabra giant tortoise (Columbus Zoo)

eastern bluebird (Columbus Zoo)

honey bee (wild at the Columbus Zoo)

A 17-year-old western cattle egret (Columbus Zoo)

silver-spotted skipper (wild at the Columbus Zoo)

Twiggy, an African elephant gets a pedicure (Toledo Zoo).

Victoria crowned pigeons (Columbus Zoo)

Asian elephants (Columbus Zoo)

laughing kookaburra (Columbus Zoo)

Lake Erie water snake (grayish) and easterm fox snake (yellow/red and black) (Columbus Zoo)

unknown freshwater fish (Toledo Zoo)

I'm lookin' at you

Watusi cattle (Toledo Zoo)

 

San Esteban chuckwalla

western cattle egret

silvered langur

Reeves's muntjac

king cobra

Florida manatee

Victoria crowned pigeon

dromedary camel

All photos are from the Columbus Zoo except as noted.