Life in Pongoland
I arrived in Leipzig, Germany on June 20, 2006 to spend 6 weeks at the Max Planck Insititute for Evolutionary Anthropology. The facility here is incredible. The Institute is in a beautiful modern building; there is an outdoor courtyard with a little pond with ducks and turtles swimming around and tables all around. I have office space here and access to all of the resources including a library.
The zoo is across town, about 15 min by bike. The main MPI facility is part of Pongoland, a central building housing 4 ape species - chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas. There are multiple testing rooms for each species used between 8:30 to 12:30 am. After that, the animals go outside to the regular zoo observation areas. The roof of the central building has viewing areas for researchers only. Here, you can sit in the sun with binoculars or video cameras and just watch. I did this for several hours my first day there - it is really amazing to watch these animals at such proximity. And to be able to walk to another corner and see a different species of primate! There are few places in the world where you can do this. Species comparisons arise as a matter of daily life here. And the collective knowledge of the researchers amazes me.
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