The Use of Ultrasonic Communication to Maintain Social Cohesion in the Javan Slow Loris (Nycticebus javanicus).

Only a handful of primate taxa use ultrasonic vocalisations (those ≥20 kHz) to communicate. The extent and uses of ultrasonic communication remain poorly understood, potentially ranging from echolocation, advertisement of reproductive status and resource availability, social cohesion, to predator avoidance. Here, using active acoustics whereby the study subjects were observed throughout their activity period, we describe the first purely ultrasonic call from a strepsirrhine primate (family Lorisidae), recorded in a completely wild setting, and hypothesise about its function. We identified one type of ultrasonic call, the doublet click, from 14 Javan slow lorises (Nycticebus javanicus) produced by males and females of juvenile, subadult and adult ages within their social groups (n = 791, mean = 46.0 kHz). We ran quadratic discriminant function analysis, finding dominant frequency and doublet click duration as the key parameters for identifying individuals' sex and age. Significantly more vocalisations were produced during affiliative social behaviour, suggesting that the call serves a social cohesion function. Considering the range of other cryptic behaviours, including slow and silent locomotion, and the high degree of territoriality associated with venomous attacks on conspecifics, the call may also serve as a safety strategy, allowing family members to regulate distance from other slow lorises and to communicate cryptically whilst avoiding predators.

Nutrient-based diet modifications impact on the gut microbiome of the Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus).

Environment and diet are key factors which shape the microbiome of organisms. There is also a disparity between captive and wild animals of the same species, presumably because of the change in diet. Being able to reverse the microbiome to the wild type is thus particularly important for the reintroduction efforts of Critically Endangered animals. The Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus) is a suitable model, being kept in the thousands within rescue centres throughout Southeast Asia. With next-generation sequencing, we show how a naturalistic diet impacts the gut microbiome of captive slow lorises (Primates: Nycticebus). A comparison of the microbiome of wild animals with captive animals that had been fed a standard captive or improved diet reveals strong microbiome differences between wild and captive animals; however, diet changes failed to alter the microbiome of captive populations significantly. Bifidobacterium was the most abundant genus in wild animals (46.7%) while Bacteroides (11.6%) and Prevotella (18.9%) were the most abundant in captive animals fed the captive and improved diets, respectively. Correlation analyses of nutrients with microbial taxa suggest important implications in using nutrition to suppress potential pathogens, with soluble fibre and water-soluble carbohydrates both being associated with opposing microbiome profiles. The improved diet significantly increased microbe diversity, which exemplifies the importance of high fibre diets; however, wild individuals had lower diversity, which contradicts recent studies. Detection of methanogens appeared to be dependent on diet and whether the animals were living in captivity or in the wild. This study highlights the potential of nutrition in modulating the microbiome of animals prior to release. Unexpectedly, the results were not as significant as has been suggested in recent studies.

Trialling nutrient recommendations for slow lorises (Nycticebus spp.) based on wild feeding ecology.

Slow loris (Nycticebus spp.) captive diets have been based on routine and anecdotes rather than scientific fact. The growing body of evidence contradicts the high fruit diet supported by such anecdotes. Non-human primate nutrient requirements are grouped into new (based on the common marmoset Callithrix jacchus) or old world (based on rhesus macaques Macaca mulatta) primates. Slow lorises are known to suffer from many health ailments in captivity such as dental disease, obesity, wasting and kidney issues all of which have been linked to diet. This study aimed to estimate nutrient intake from free-ranging slow lorises and to determine whether this intake can be used as nutrient recommendations. We collected data of nutrient intake, food passage rate and digestibility of captive slow lorises on three diet treatments 1: current captive type diet which is mostly fruits, 2: wild-type diet made only of food items from their natural diet, 3: new diet made to reflect wild slow loris nutrient intake. In order to validate our nutrient recommendations, diets 2 and 3 would have to be significantly different to Diet 1 in terms of nutrients, but not different from each other. Captive diets were significantly higher in soluble carbohydrates and lower in minerals and fibre fractions than both diets 2 and 3. Diets 2 and 3 led to a significantly increased food passage time and to more effective fibre and calcium digestion compared to Diet 1. We also observed obese individuals lost weight and underweight individuals gained weight. Our nutrient recommendations have been validated by our trials, and new or old world monkey nutrient recommendations are not consistent with our results. Diets should be high in protein and fibre and low in soluble carbohydrates and fats.