Even though it has been a while between posts, I've been thinking a lot lately about my visit to the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) and I feel as if it is high time I start wrapping up this chapter of the blog. I owe it to the lemurs, including this lovely crowned lemur, and her adorable baby, and the energetic blue-eyed black lemurs (left). My DLC visit was such a great way to thoroughly immerse myself in the world of everything lemur. I had been an official member of PJ's lab for one semester, and at that point in time I was still roughing out ideas about what I would like to study during my grad school years (and possibly beyond). I was only completely sure of two research goals: 1. I would study lemurs, obviously; and 2. I wanted my dissertation to integrate many different techniques and methodologies. I've always had the "problem" of wanting to learn a little bit of everything (see Research), but an integrative process would fulfill my intellectual needs AND allow me to amass a swath of useful skills and knowledge. |
Now I don't want to go into too many details just yet, but PJ and I have some ideas about incorporating osteological morphology data - a fancy way of saying information left behind on the bones of deceased lemurs - with genetic data to answer some of the same questions. As a potential high school marine biologist turned undergraduate microbiologist, I knew almost nothing about mammalian skeletal anatomy, including that of humans and non-human primates. All I knew was that primates have an awful lot of bones (human adults have 206 to be exact) and I was going to have to start learning all about them if any of mine and PJ's ideas were going to work out...