The lemurs of Ranomafana National Park seem to have gotten used to their protected status and lost all fear of humans. In fact, we approached one of them, a Greater Bamboo Lemur, while he was munching on a hunk of pale yellow bamboo. He kept on eating as we got closer, and finally, when we were right next to him, he looked up at us. It suddenly struck me that I could actually try to communicate with him.
"Hello," I said. "Excuse me, but do you realize that I'm your distant relative?"
It was a pretty lame opening, but still I was surprised, when he replied,
"Very distant. And we're not particularly proud of it. We see you as pretty pathetic, ground-bound as you are. I mean, Life is in the trees, man!"
Well, I saw immediately that he would be frank with me. So I decided to go directly to the subject I was most curious about.
"You know, that bamboo you're eating is a total poison to us."
"Good thing," he repied "We wouldn't want you turning it into one of your cash crops. First thing you know, it'd be genetically modified, and then when we ate it we'd probably lose our fur or grow an extra foot finger or something."
"In fact," I went on, "we're so impressed with the fact that you eat the stuff,which contains cyanide, that we call you the Greater Bamboo Lemur."
"What!!: he shouted. "You named us after what we eat!?! I mean, what about the other lemurs?"
I had to tell him that other lemurs were called ring-tail, brown, and dancing, but that he and he and his slightly more yellow cousin were called the Greater and the Golden Bamboo Lemurs.
"Ok, ok," he said. "So let's start right now be calling you humans after what you eat. Yeah, yeah. Let's make it a subspecies, so you can still breed with each other. But there's definitely the hamburger-eating human, and the friend-chicken-eating human." He was on a roll, but the next thing he said really surprised me.
"Homo sapiens hamburgensis and Homo sapiens polooleoardensis."
This lemur knew Latin??
Then he jumped up on a thick bamboo stalk and off he went.
"Hello," I said. "Excuse me, but do you realize that I'm your distant relative?"
It was a pretty lame opening, but still I was surprised, when he replied,
"Very distant. And we're not particularly proud of it. We see you as pretty pathetic, ground-bound as you are. I mean, Life is in the trees, man!"
Well, I saw immediately that he would be frank with me. So I decided to go directly to the subject I was most curious about.
"You know, that bamboo you're eating is a total poison to us."
"Good thing," he repied "We wouldn't want you turning it into one of your cash crops. First thing you know, it'd be genetically modified, and then when we ate it we'd probably lose our fur or grow an extra foot finger or something."
"In fact," I went on, "we're so impressed with the fact that you eat the stuff,which contains cyanide, that we call you the Greater Bamboo Lemur."
"What!!: he shouted. "You named us after what we eat!?! I mean, what about the other lemurs?"
I had to tell him that other lemurs were called ring-tail, brown, and dancing, but that he and he and his slightly more yellow cousin were called the Greater and the Golden Bamboo Lemurs.
"Ok, ok," he said. "So let's start right now be calling you humans after what you eat. Yeah, yeah. Let's make it a subspecies, so you can still breed with each other. But there's definitely the hamburger-eating human, and the friend-chicken-eating human." He was on a roll, but the next thing he said really surprised me.
"Homo sapiens hamburgensis and Homo sapiens polooleoardensis."
This lemur knew Latin??
Then he jumped up on a thick bamboo stalk and off he went.
You should have tried him on other languages too.
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