pet primate SOOOOO cute, so you want one, right?

A really great op-ed piece from Britannica Blogs on that super super adorable video of a loris that was circulating around the interwebs some time ago. PS: did you know they were poisonous? -MA

From Britannica Blogs
Tickled to Death
BY RICHARD PALLARDY

So, you want one, right?

This writer did, at least for a brief, selfish moment, before the obvious ethical questions effectively quashed any acquisitive desires. How exactly did this otherworldly creature—clearly a wild animal—end up in somebody’s bedroom? As much he seems to be enjoying his belly rub, his voyage from lush greenery to a threadbare boudoir can’t have been a pleasant one.

Indeed, his captor’s questionable taste in bedroom décor and incessant giggling likely represent the least of his travails to this point. Though the species is not designated on YouTube, the animate Furby depicted in the video appears to be a Sunda, or greater, slow loris (Nycticebus coucang), the species of slow loris most commonly found in the illegal pet trade. As their name indicates, all five species of slow loris move ploddingly and deliberately through their arboreal habitats—picture a chinchilla-wrapped Gollum in really slow motion—making them easy pickings for poachers. Though fairly docile, slow lorises are among the few venomous mammals and the only venomous primates. They possess glands at their elbows that they lick before sinking their needle-like teeth into their aggressors. (While the mechanism of the poison in the gland is unknown, chemical analysis has determined that it shares several characteristics with the main allergens produced by domestic cats.) Though usually not fatal, the toxin may induce anaphylaxis and the wound, due to oral bacteria from the loris, heals slowly. This incongruously unpleasant tendency leads exotic animal traders to defang their hostages with pliers, a practice that, aside from inflicting pain and causing infection, means that any animals recovered by wildlife officials after this barbaric procedure cannot be returned to the wild.

The slow loris belongs to the primate suborder Strepsirrhini—which also contains lemurs, tarsiers, bush babies, and the related slender lorises—and like all strepsirrines possesses a toothcomb, an arrangement of the teeth used in securing food and grooming. While rehabilitated lorises whose teeth have been removed seem to manage to groom themselves, the extent to which the loss would impair their normal feeding habits in the wild is unknown. They feed on fruits, insects, and smaller animals, but also often scrape resin from trees using their uniquely adapted chompers.

Brutal dental practices aren’t the end of it: because their tree-dwelling existence mandates the ability to grasp branches for long periods of time, they have vice-like grips that make them difficult to extract from wire cages. Being wrenched from the bars of their mesh prisons often tears the skin on their hands and ruptures the unique system of blood vessels that provides a steady flow of oxygenated blood to the muscles in their extremities and enables them to maintain static grips for hours on end without cramping.

Native to southeast Asia, from India to Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the creatures are frequent victims of the wildlife trade despite numerous restrictions on their capture and sale. Four of the five species of slow loris, including the Sunda slow loris, are considered vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Javan slow loris is endangered. All five were transferred to Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 2007, meaning that all international trade is banned. Yet lax airport inspections allow thousands to slip into the Middle East and Japan where people pay thousands of dollars for what to the careless buyer is essentiallly a stuffed animal with an incidental pulse.

Furby-like though they may appear, these primates are relatively intelligent animals whose habits and social structure are still not entirely understood. An amateur pet owner cannot possibly fully accommodate the needs of a creature still cryptic even to experts in some respects..

Even those animals that are intercepted in their native countries face further problems. The slow lorises were once considered a single species and understandably so—the morphological differences are fairly subtle. Because of this, well-meaning rescuers often release the captured animals into habitat suited for another species of slow loris where, lacking adaptations to the demands of the environment, they die.

Though some avaricious “animal lovers” may not be deterred by the litany of crimes—both ethical and legal—that enabled this tickle-fest, hopefully most can see that having one’s own personal Ewok is best relegated to the realm of fantasy.