Hi everyone! My name is Morgan Lucot and I am
the newest fisi research assistant. I am told that you all might want to get to
know me a bit so here goes. I grew up in Ann Arbor and then defected to
Michigan State University for college, where I received a degree in zoology. At
MSU I was an undergraduate research assistant for the Mara Hyena Project for 2
years. I worked with David Green to identify large carnivores one year and with
Kenna Lehmann on her vocalizations the next. During both years I completed
small research projects of my own under the supervision of the grad students.
The first project I worked with other undergrads to understand how hyenas
utilize their territories. The second project I did alone to try and pick apart
the context of a common vocalization, the giggle. If you are interested I can
tell you more about them but I won’t go into any detail here.
This isn’t my first time in Kenya. After junior
year of college, I went on the Behavior and Ecology of African Mammals (BEAM)
study abroad that the lab offers. That trip introduced me to the lab and changed
the course of my studies. I have been hoping to return to Kenya ever since that
trip in 2014 and I really am so thrilled to be back!
I
got to Kenya last Friday and spent about a week in Nairobi waiting for a car to
get fixed. I finally made it down to the Mara on Saturday and have been here
for only a couple days now. So far I am still settling in and getting adjusted
to camp life. The hardest part to get used to is the sleep schedule. We go to
bed fairly early, around 9pm, so that we can wake up at 5am to head out into
the territory. I am slowly adjusting, though.
As for the hyenas, they are something else.
There are a lot of cubs and subadults, which means a TON of fluff and fun. We
are also expecting a few new babies and soon we will get to name some hyenas!
So far my favorite little ones are two siblings
named Hertz and Nano. They are super playful and love to lay around in little
cub puddles, which makes them perfect for pictures and for feeling good in the
morning. They are just now getting their spots, so we can tell them apart. Next
we need to watch their behavior to see who is dominant (there is always a
dominant sibling) as well as sex them. Let me tell you a little something about
sexing baby hyenas: it's hard. The reason it can be so tricky is because
both males and females have a phallus. That makes sexing a cub a little more
difficult than taking a peek under their bellies. There is a small difference
in the shape of the phallus tip on males and females, which can only really be
seen when erect. We have to wait for an individual to display an erect phallus
and then hopefully get a good view of the tip. This can be tricky, so we don’t
determine sex until we have seen a cub’s erect phallus three separate times,
and came to the same conclusion for all three occasions.
Hyena phalluses and cub sexing is not the only thing we
worked on this week but as I am running out of space I’ll save the rest for
later. Over all it has been a great first week in fisi camp!
P.S. sorry about the lack of pictures. The internet just was
not fast enough this week and I didn’t time my post around market day. Sorry!
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