Drills

Before I started on my jobs list this morning I had a chat to Phil, my line manager. I was worried about the length of my to do list and knew that some species would likely be given priority over the others. A brief discussion with him had my to do list reassessed. Now first on the list is the newest species in the collection.... Drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) followed by the kowari (Dasyuroides byrnei).

Drill  males are truly impressive weighing up to 20kg (44lb - just over 3 stone almost twice the weight of a female) with short stubby tails, colourful rainbow buttocks, heavy built shoulders and neck, black face with raised ridges and a pink chin. It looks almost like a mandrill, but with a less colourful face. They are a rainforest species found only in Equatorial Guinea where they have been declining in recent decades.  Illegal commercial hunting, habitat destruction, and human development have reduced them to perhaps as few as 3,000 in the wild, with the highest population estimate only 8,000... making them Africa's rarest primate.

A Kowari is a small carnivorous marsupial from the grasslands and deserts of central Australia. It measures about 16-18 cms long with a 12-14cm bushy tail and is mouse-like with a pointy face, bright beady eyes and large ears. As cute as it looks, I wouldn't put my hand anywhere near one as they are apparently voracious little critters. They have at least 5 other common names that they are known by such as brush tailed marsupial rat and is classed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red Data List.

So first job was to try and get photo's of these two species.

The kowari are in Twilight World and after observing them last week (for the first time) and chatting to the animal section staff... they are still very elusive and have not been seen out much. My chances of photoing them looked slim. Last week I waited by their enclosure just before the lights were due to dim for the change over (reverse hour lighting - their nighttime is our daytime). They stayed in their little shelters, only poking their cute little faces out of the doorway until the lights went off and the night time lighting came on (very low level blue light).

Then they came straight out, but of course, the camera could not function in such darkness and flash photography is out of the question. So I returned today about 15 mins before the light change over, kept still and quiet to one side of the window and was delighted when one ventured out in the daylight! The light is still quite low so I had to reset the cameras ISO and white balance levels and hope that the little critter stayed still long enough for me to get a half decent/in focus/unblurred shot. Took lots of images and managed to get a few that I could work from.


Pleased with my luck I went out into the daylight and walked the short distance to the drill enclosure. I have not seen this species before either, so was looking forward to seeing them. We have two males and from the looks of them one looks to be more mature than the other as he has a much more impressive shoulder/neck area and the colours on his butt and chin were much more vivid.

 The two boys were quite inquisitive and took a lot of notice of the people who stopped to look at them, including me, and were obviously still investigating their new domain. As I was watching and taking photos of them I saw that they were 'worrying' at some wood surrounding a window pane of their enclosure. It didn't take long before, between them, working seperately, they pulled a strip of wood off. That little act of vandalism I would have to report to the animal section when I got back to the studio. I couldn't fail to be impressed by these animals, they are quite stunning...maybe not exactly beautiful or pretty but definitely full of attitude and strength. The colours on their butts are quite surreal.. and if the animal didn't look like it could flatten me in a single boxing bout I'd say the colours were almost girly!

The dominant guy yawned and just like a baboon the teeth were awesome! Scary fangs in a gape so wide... as Phil said... you could fit your head in it!

Once back at the studio and after passing on the info about the drill's little DIY activity to the animal section, Phil adjusted my chair height and re-angled my desk top so that it would be more comfortable to work with my gammy shoulder. Then for most of the day I uploaded and sorted the  photo's I had taken and set about drawing the drill. Its distinguishing features are its head/shoulders and butt, so I need to draw it in a position to show off all three. Using the photos I took, I pieced together a position that I hope will suit. In drawing them, I noticed how small their hands are in comparison to the bulk of their heads and shoulders.  The head looks massive on the body, which is emphasised by the thick fur on top of the head and round the neck. By late pm I had refined the drawing to a point where I think I'm ready to start painting.

Last job of the day was to put up some of the fish ID panels that we had produced by an outside company. The IDs are printed onto a thick film/plastic to go into the lightboxes in the Aquarium. Anna had sorted all the artwork files ready for the printer company and now between us we needed to put them up. Because of my shoulder I could only stay at the bottom of the steps to make sure they were stable whilst Anna climbed up to remove the temporary paper ID panels and replace them with these new ones. We got all the lower lightboxes done before 5pm, when the Aquarium is quieter public-wise, as we only had a small pair of steps. Tomorrow we have the last few ID panels to go up in the higher lightboxes.. so we'll need to get bigger steps from the Maintenance Dept.