Some of our lorises, like Lucu, have been observed for almost 10 years, so it is fair to say that it can be hard to keep track of all the little details of their private lives. This is especially true for Lucu who we have observed since she was baby and is now nine years old and a great grandmother! Over the course of her life, she has had two confirmed mates and six known offspring. Her first offspring with Dempak, Lily, was lost to us as they dispersed before we were able to give her a collar, whereas their second offspring Lupak is still followed to this day and has a family of her own with Dindi.
After the death of Dempak in 2016, Lucu eventually moved on with Rufio, her current mate. Rufio was first observed in 2017 and little is known about where he came from or who he is descended from. Rufio and Lucu are a loving couple, they are often found sleeping together, and they share the responsibility of raising their offspring together. Their oldest son Lalit dispersed out of the study area in 2019 before his second birthday which is common in young males as they are often keen to set out on their own to explore the forest and find their own home range and a lovely lady to settle down with.
Lucu and Rufio’s middle offspring Loopi and LN were both born in 2018, just 9 months apart. However, when Loopi was just over one year old the team lost track of them before they could be given a collar, and that’s where things get interesting. Shortly after Indonesian Project Lead Katey arrived at the field station she set out to catch LN and replace his collar. When she arrived at LN’s location, she found him with another adult loris, and decided to catch them both. LN’s companion turned out to be an adult female loris, which was surprising to the team as LN was still a subadult male living within his parent’s home range. As an uncollared adult had been observed socialising with both LN and his father Rufio around the same time, it was concluded that this adult female must be LN’s lost sister Loopi! So of course, we put a collar on Loopi so that we could follow her movements and confirm our suspicions.
Observations continued as usual for several weeks, and it appeared our theory was correct as we would observe Loopi playing and social grooming with her brother LN and father Rufio. until we started observing some strange interactions between LN and his “sister”. In one such example LN licked Loopi’s genitals during a grooming session, and while we don’t judge I think we can all agree that’s a strange thing to do to your sibling! LN and Loopi continued sharing a sleeping site regularly, even once he turned two and became an adult loris, and we realised that not only did we not see Loopi with Rufio anymore, but we had also never seen her with her supposed mother Lucu. After careful analysis of several months behavioural and GPS data we realised that LN and Loopi had established their own home range right next door to Lucu and Rufio. We decided to continue monitoring all of their behaviour and interactions before we drew any new conclusions, and just a few months later we discovered Loopi was pregnant! Her offspring Gila was born in December 2020 and both LN and Loopi have been observed sleeping and interacting with Gila. So finally, the team has decided we can officially announce that Loopi is in fact LN’s wife!
Sadly, this does mean that we do not what happened to Lucu and Rufio’s baby Loopi back in 2019 but you never know who we might meet in the future! In the meantime, we have been able to get to know Lucu and Rufio’s youngest daughter, Lava who has just turned one year old. While Lava has not been given a collar yet, we have been able to conduct several observation shifts with her by locating her with her parents and following her movements using eyeshine detection. Now she is a little older we are hoping to recatch her again soon and put a collar on so we can really start getting to know her!
