As a PhD student at University College London and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Carolyn Thompson is currently a London-based researcher and educator – but her path into primatology took a geographically diverse root. First charmed to the order of animals by a miscommunication between herself and a macaque, Thompson now specializes in gibbons including the Hainan gibbon, the rarest primate in the world. Here, she tells us that while working with primates might not involve all that much interaction with animals (at least, not on purpose), you do sometimes find yourself running after hose-wielding orangutans.
What do you do?