Aye-Aye Folklore Informant: Sam Gochman

Samuel Gochman is a senior at Dartmouth College, who will be graduating in 2018. Sam was born in Long Island, New York to highly educated parents. Both of his parents are Caucasian and have Eastern European roots. His father graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and has a medical degree. His mother got her Masters in Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh and then studied occupational therapy at Boston University. Sam’s parents value education, though according to Sam, “they weren’t pushy in a bad way.” Rather, they were avid supporters of his education and promoted learning outside of the classroom. Due to his particular background and expertise in science, Sam’s father encouraged his son’s interest in STEM and provided opportunities for explorations and conducting experiments. In his public high school, Sam was passionate about his research with the biology department, which focused on evolution. Therefore, it only made sense for him to continue on a similar path at Dartmouth. His freshman year, he took a lot of anthropology, ecology and environmental science classes. He is currently a biology major, modified with anthropology, and with a human centered design minor. In his free time, Sam plays the guitar and saxophone, fences with the DCFC, the Dartmouth College Fencing Club, and serves as the programmer for his fraternity, Chi Gamma Epsilon. He has also done a lot of work in architecture studios. Post-graduation, Sam is looking for a job in the design research sector. He is particularly interested in how environments interact with organisms, and vice versa.

We decided to interview Sam because his research with aye-ayes at the Duke Lemur Center has been published. Notably, Sam was the first author on the paper. He has a lot of first hand experience working with aye-ayes as well as interacting with other scholars in the field. Sam was first introduced to aye-ayes during his freshman fall in Professor Dominy’s Anthropology 20 class, “Primate Evolution and Ecology.” Even as a senior, Sam still identifies this course as his favorite at Dartmouth. After class one day, he approached Professor Dominy and asked if he needed any help doing research. He did not. Instead Professor Dominy said, “I don’t need help, but I’ll help you” and offered Sam the opportunity to create his own project. Over the course of his freshman year, Sam attained course credits by performing research with Professor Dominy. Under his guidance, Sam develop a protocol and experimental apparatus that assesses aye-aye’s affinity for alcohol. Then, over Sam’s sophomore summer, he received a grant and partnership to do research with the Duke Lemur Center. He moved to Durham, North Carolina that summer and settled in an old cabin that did not even have internet! He worked one-on-one with aye-ayes everyday for three weeks. This “memorable” and “positive” experience gave Sam the opportunity to see how real experiments are carried out as well as practice recording and analyzing data. Furthermore, Sam is grateful for the strong bonds he built with fellow researchers and staff at the Center. After that summer, he published his findings, and it has gotten a lot of press. He has been interviewed by Discovery Channel and BBC, photographed by National Geographic, presented at primate conferences, and was a keynote speaker at the Duke Lemur Center’s 50th Anniversary Gala this past fall.

Sam described his research in detail. He studied aye-ayes’ interest in consuming alcohol. Sam’s research took advantage of aye-ayes’ unique probing behavior with their bony, middle finger to measure their intake of alcohol. His experimental apparatus was a clear, plastic table with many small, embedded containers full of fermented nectar. Data was collected with nocturnal aye-ayes on a reversed light-schedule, and in a dark enclosure with red lighting (which aye-ayes cannot detect).  Sam found that aye-ayes have a preference for alcohol in their food. It is speculated that alcohol is adaptively high in calories and aye-ayes have an effectively high tolerance and digest it easily due to their hyperactive alcohol digesting enzymes.

Sam first learned about the Malagasy folklore surrounding aye-ayes from Professor Dominy’s lecture. But, through his scholarly pursuits, he could not help but learn more. He read scholarly articles, heard anecdotes from fellow researchers at the Duke Lemur Center and at conferences, and visited taxidermy museums. Overwhelmingly though, Sam acknowledges that he has the perspective of a scholar and biologist. The Duke Lemur Center focuses on conservation efforts and their breeding program. Therefore, many scholars view the Malagasy stigmas as a “terrible shame,” as aye-ayes are a huge learning resource and an entire species is getting killed out of human fear. Simultaneously though, this behavior is “understandable” since the fear this animal provokes is perpetuated across generations. Thus, Sam clearly embodies the western scholarly perspective.

Sam’s pages: 

 

Click for more aye-aye folklore