Will the real slow loris please stand up… Slowly.

Dearest readers, I have a confession to make: I am not actually a loris. I am a human.

Yesterday was my birthday, and yesterday it also occurred to me that for the last 2 years or so I have had the audacity to be masquerading a pygmy loris without so much as writing a single blog post about these most adorable little creatures (because these are the sorts of things one reflects on when one gets a year older, n’est-ce pas?). This is my attempt to correct this discrepancy. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet the slow loris.

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When I show people a picture of a loris, I generally get one of two reactions:

1. “Euugh what a freak!”

2. “AWWWWW SO CUTE!”

If your reaction was 1., get off my blog. Right now. If your reaction was closer to 2., I’d like to say OMG I KNOW RIGHT?! I mean just LOOK at those ginormous beautiful eyes and those big chubby fingers! Let’s talk about how CUTE and AMAZING they are!

I had never heard of lorises until I was in the third year of my undergraduate degree, where I took a compulsory module on animal behaviour. “Pah, animal behaviour.” I thought to myself, “what use is that going to be to me?” as I shrugged at the back of the lecture theatre and stuck my head back into a book entitled “symbolic interactionism”. Then, in my very first animal behaviour lecture, my professor showed a slide with this very picture on it:

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I had never seen anything that looked remotely like this little creature before. What the hell was it? It looks like an alien. And I instantly fell in love. I remember few specific facts from that lecture, but I did learn that this odd creature is called a slow loris because it is really, really slow and it has chubby fingers because it uses them to pick up bugs like caterpillars and eat them. I also learned that animal behaviour would be by far the most interesting part of my entire degree.

Lorises aren’t just cute, they’re freaking cool and unique too, and not unique in the way that parents assure their children they’re unique, lorises really are special: they are the only venomous primate. Yep, don’t be fooled by this cutie’s slow and shy nature, she can do some serious damage. The venom is produced in what appears to be an overly complicated rigmarole – oil is secreted from a gland near the loris’s elbow which only turns deadly when combined with her own saliva via licking (fun fact: I can lick my own elbow, which is often assumed to be impossible, just another reason I feel the lorises and I are kindred spirits). It’s not known exactly why this venom system evolved in lorises, but it is likely that it has something to do with protection from predators. Because of the need to combine the arm-venom with saliva from the mouth, it is not surprising that the defense pose of the slow loris is one in which the arms are held up, above its head… Sort of like this.

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Some of you may recognise this image, it’s taken from a viral video entitled “Slow loris loves getting tickled”. I would argue that this loris probably does not love getting tickled and that in fact it is terrified by the whole situation.

Unfortunately because they are so freakishly attractive, people in some parts of the world think lorises would make excellent pets. The internet is riddled with videos of them being all cute and cuddly but in reality these animals are not suited to being domestic pets at all. They are solitary nocturnal (not to mention venomous) animals. But when people want people get, and so the vulnerable loris is hunted (which is not a difficult task due to their slow moving nature and the shine from their huge eyes at night), their sharp teeth are removed and they are sold on the black market as pets to countries like Japan and Indonesia.

It’s so easy to see the videos of pet lorises and think they are cute and funny – they are, if you don’t really know how these animals live in the wild. But they should not be kept as pets, and the rather wonderful Anna Nekaris and colleagues have set up the Little Fireface Project highlighting the importance of saving this beautiful creature from extinction through ecology and education.

I will leave you with a teeny weeny video of a slow loris in its natural habitat, in a tree, at night, just so you can see how wonderfully and peacefully they move around, and because it’s the only video I could find that did not make me want to cry and save all the lorises and return them back to the wild.

Confessions of a psychology graduate

As is not uncommon in Scotland, I went to university when I was just 17 years old. I always knew I wanted to go to uni, although I was only the second person in my whole family to make the leap into higher education. I have always loved learning and school and therefore it just seemed like the natural thing to do. However this meant that I had to make a pretty huge decision between the tender ages of 15 and 16: Which degree program I wanted to embark on for four years of my life. There was no question about it (after a brief period of flirting with the idea of journalism): I was going to study psychology.

At the time this was a very easy decision to make and it has only been fairly recently that I have begun to reflect on why I made this decision and did not even consider another subject – in particular, given my obvious passion and enthusiasm for biology etc, why did I not chose to study a “real” science?

The answer is, if someone could go back in time, find the 15-16 year old Loris (probably sitting in her computing class giggling hysterically at hilarious cartoon videos on Weebls-stuff – hey, these were the days before Youtube, kids!) and tell her that she should consider studying biology at university, I’m almost certain she would have laughed in your face.

It’s not that I didn’t like science – in fact, when we were choosing our standard grade subjects (Scottish equivalent of the English GCSEs or whatever they are these days) I was adamant that I wanted to pick up both chemistry and biology, which my guidance teacher advised against because it was “tricky to take two sciences” (he asked me to consider taking an arts subject instead, however if he had spoken to either my art or craft and design teacher and/or ever taken a look at any of the monstrosities I had produced in these classes I’m sure he would have retracted that statement). But I got my own way and studied both biology and chemistry. It’s sad to say that I adored both of these subjects until I was formally taught them in school.

My chemistry teacher looked like a mad scientist, but not in an eccentric and endearing way. He was short with the most unruly beard I have ever seen, was never without a ragged tank top covered by a lab coat and had a very obvious dislike of high school-age children. He mumbled when he spoke so you couldn’t hear a damn thing he said, and when he tried to emphasise his point by writing it on the blackboard at the front of the class, his writing was so manic and unintelligible that it just made things more confusing and you wouldn’t dare ask a question because it just seemed to frustrate him, making everything a bit more agitated. I enjoyed the demos we got to do in class, but I left every day with absolutely no idea of the science behind them and the relevance of any of them.

Biology was a little different; my teacher was a patient elderly woman who explained things quite well. I loved learning about plants and animals and cells and ecology, but when it came to assessment time I failed miserably every time. I felt like I understood the lessons and my homework was always fine, but when it came to class tests I was just not getting the grades. I was in my biology class at lunch times leading up to exams and worked my ass off to eventually got a top grade in the exam, but it was a real struggle. I realise now that perhaps I found this so difficult because the questions we were asked were so aloof and out of context. To revise we were all told to do lots of past papers which I did, and they helped – but only because you got to know the sorts of questions that would come up. They did nothing to enhance my actual understanding of biology or science itself, I was just repeating stuff I had memorised.

I don’t recall if I made this analysis at the time or not, but I now realise that to me, psychology was “like science but easier”. But I absolutely adored my degree. I barely missed any of my lectures and classes over four years and found the university system of assignment much easier to handle than the school arrangement I was so used to but had grown to hate. Suddenly I could write essays and give an opinion and criticise without being “right” or “wrong”. I was fascinated (and often horrified) by the history of psychological research, and my degree subject became more than my studies, it became part of my identity, and on my graduation day I was proud to hold a BSc in psychology.

It was only after I graduated that I began to reflect on my chosen degree. People began asking what I wanted to do now. Most assumed I was going to be a psychologist (which I had decided against strongly within two weeks of my first semester), then seemed genuinely confused and almost sympathetic when I told them this was certainly not going to be the case (presumably they thought I had just wasted four years of my life). I grew tired of the number of times I heard something along the lines of “Oh you’ve got a psychology degree? Well you’ve got your work cut out with this one!” “Psychology? Oooh we better watch ourselves around you, you’ll be reading our minds!” “You know psychology? Do you, like, constantly analyse everything then?” Suddenly I felt very fed up of the psych stigma.

After returning to university to complete an MSc in evolution and behaviour and deciding that science communication was the field I wanted to get involved with, I was reminded even more of how stigmatised a psychology degree can be. Even now, upon learning that I want to be a science communicator, people say “oh so what is your first degree in?” When I tell them it is psychology, they often respond with a look of near-confusion, at which point I feel the need to add in “…And I have a master’s degree in evolution and behaviour” as if this somehow verifies that I Know Some Science.

I’m certainly not expecting psychology to be viewed on a par with physics or chemistry, and I know that the field has had its controversies and downright absurdities. But it feels to me like it’s always viewed as an easy degree, or something you take if you didn’t get the grades to do something else, or if you went to university for the craic. But I chose to study psychology, despite never wanting to be a psychologist, I loved my degree, I worked my ass of for it, yet… Now, if I could have my time again, I’d at the very least do a joint honours degree with biology, because I feel it would give me more credibility. One of the reasons I am so passionate about science communication is probably because I wish science had been communicated properly to me when I was making such a huge decision. It may not have changed my mind about studying psychology (it almost definitely would not have, I was a stubborn child) but at least it would have made me aware of what studying science entails and the opportunities a science degree can give you later in life.

I don’t know, maybe this is my problem. Are there any psychology graduates out there who feel almost apologetic about their degree, even if they love psychology? If so, please do let me know, maybe we can start a movement or support group or something.

I have some news…

For a number of reasons, I have decided not to continue with my PhD. I would like to thank absolutely everyone that I have met, worked with and befriended during the last 9 months that I’ve spent in Newcastle – you are all awesome, many of you are crackers, a few of you have changed my life. I have had a wonderful time, learned a lot, and had experiences that I will never forget. As for the project itself, it is unique and relevant and something I am really proud of and remain passionate about: I sincerely hope that someone can pick it up and continue to work on it where I left off. I don’t regret a moment of this year.

The plan now is to move back to Scotland at the end of September. I will continue to blog about all things animal/sex related, if you can all bear to read the work of someone who no longer carries the hope of one day owning the title Dr Loris. Back to Loris Master o’ Science we must revert.

I still plan on making a career for myself in science communication/education, but I now realise that committing up to six years of my life to this PhD may not be the best way to go about it for me personally.

Newcastle: Thanks for everything, I will miss you.

Glasgow: I’m coming back. If anyone wants to employ this face, I’m totally available.

Loris x