National Zoo – Ring-tailed Lemur

By FNZ
October 1, 2009

Order: Primates
Family: Lemuridae
Genus and species: Lemur catta

Distribution and Habitat
Ring-tailed lemurs are found in the southwest portion of Madagascar. They live in arid, open areas and forests. Ring-tailed lemurs live in territories that range from 15 to 57 acres (0.06 to 0.2 km²) in size.

Physical Description
The average body mass for adult males is six to seven pounds (3 kg). Females are usually smaller.

Ring-tailed lemur backs are gray to rosy brown, limbs are gray, and their heads and neck are dark gray. They have white bellies. Their faces are white with dark triangular eye patches and a black nose. Their tails are ringed with 13 alternating black and white bands. This famous tail can measure up to two feet (61 cm) in length.

Unlike most other lemurs, ring-tails spend 40 percent of their time on the ground. They move quadrupedally (on all fours) along the forest floor.

Social Structure
Ring-tailed lemurs are found in social groups ranging in size from three to 25 individuals. The groups are composed of both males and females. Females remain in their birth group throughout their lives. Generally males change groups when they reach sexual maturity, at age three. Ring-tail groups range over a considerable area each day in search of food, up to 3.5 miles (6 km). All group members use this common home range. Groups are often aggressive towards other groups at the border of these areas.

Females are dominant in the group, which means they have preferential access to food and choice of whom to mate with. This, like the gibbons, is unusual in the primate world. Males do have a dominance hierarchy, but this does not seem important during mating season because even low-ranking males are able to copulate.

Females have been seen to have closer social bonds with other female relatives in a group than they do with unrelated females.

These social bonds are established and reinforced by grooming. Prosimians groom in a rather unique way, all prosimians have six lower teeth, incisors and canines, that stick straight out from their jaw, forming a toothcomb. This comb is used to groom their fur and the fur of the other members of their social group.

One of the most unusual lemur activities that ring-tailed lemurs participate in is sunbathing. The ring-tailed mob will gather in open areas of the forest and sit in what some call a yoga position facing the sun. They sit with their bellies toward the sun and their arms and legs stretched out to the sides. This position maximizes the exposure of the less densely covered underside to the sun. The temperature in the forest can be cold at night and this is a way to warm up before they forage.

Communication
As true with all lemurs, olfactory (smell-oriented) communication is important for ring-tails. Ring-tailed lemurs have scent glands on their wrists and chests that they use to mark their foraging routes. Males even have a horny spur on each wrist gland that they use to pierce tree branches before scent-marking them.

• Tail flick: Secretions from the wrist glands are rubbed on the tail and flicked at an opponent.

Ring-tailed lemurs communicate visually in a number of ways as well. When ring-tail troops travel throughout their home range, they keep their tails raised in the air, like flags, to keep group members together. They also communicate using facial expressions. Some examples:

• Staring open-mouth face: The eyes are opened wide, the mouth is open with the teeth covered by the lips. This occurs when mobbing a predator or serves to communicate an inhibited threat.
• Staring bared-teeth scream face: The eyes are opened wide, the mouth is open with the corners drawn back so that the teeth and gums are revealed. This display occurs with terror flight.
• Silent bared-teeth face: The eyes are staring at the stimulus, the eye brows are either relaxed or up, and the corners of the mouth are drawn back allowing the teeth to show. This is used to communicate submission or a friendly approach.
• Bared-teeth gecker face: Similar to silent bared-teeth face only with a rapid noise attached to it. This display occurs during subordinate flee-approach conflicts and also when an infant is bothered.
• Pout face: The eyes are opened wide and the lips are pushed forward such that the mouth resembles an “O” shape. This occurs with contact calls and also occurs with begging.
• Hoot face: The lips are pushed forward to resemble something called a “trumpet-mouth.” This display occurs with long-distance calls (e.g. territorial calls).

Ring-tailed lemurs are one of the most vocal primates. They have several different alarm calls to alert members of their group to potential danger. Common calls include:

• Infant contact: soft purr
• Cohesion: cat’s meow. Used when the group is widely dispersed.
• Territorial: howl. Can be heard for over a half a mile (1 km).
• Alarm: Starts as a grunt then becomes a bark.
• Repulsion: series of staccato grunt sounds. It occurs between two individuals.

Reproduction and Development
Females usually produce their first offspring at age three, and annually thereafter. This can happen as early as 18 months in captivity.

In the wild, mating is extremely seasonal beginning in mid-April with infants being born in August and September. Gestation lasts four and a half months. Generally ring-tailed lemurs give birth to one offspring, but twins can be a frequent sight if food is plentiful.

Initially, infants cling to their mother’s belly, but after about two weeks, they can be seen riding jockey style, on their mother’s back. Infants begin sampling solid food after about a week and will become increasingly independent after about a month. They return to mom to nurse or sleep until they are weaned at about five or six months of age. All adult females participate in raising the offspring of the group.

Life Span
Ring-tails can live 20 to 25 years.

Diet in the Wild
The main diet of ring-tails consists of leaves, flowers, and insects. They can also eat fruit, herbs, and small vertebrates.

Zoo Diet
Once a day, they are fed a mixture of fruits and vegetables and leaf-eater biscuits.

Health Care
Each animal has a yearly physical, including a dental checkup. Fecals are checked for parasites every January and June.

The National Zoo’s Ring-tailed Lemurs
The Zoo is not actively breeding lemurs. These animals have well represented genes and the SSP does not need them as part of the breeding population. The Zoo currently houses eight ring-tails, two males and six females. They arrived from the Duke Primate Research Center in September 2001.

Conservation
Ring-tailed lemurs are endangered. The gallery forests of Madagascar that these lemurs prefer are rapidly being converted to farmland, overgrazed by livestock, and harvested for charcoal production. They are also hunted for food in certain areas of their range and are frequently kept as pets. Fortunately, ring-tails are found in several protected areas in southern Madagascar, but the level of protection varies widely in these areas, offering only some populations protection from hunting and habitat loss.

Ring-tailed lemurs breed very well in captivity, and more than 1,000 can be found at about 140 zoos around the world.

Source National Zoo

Editor’s Note: We want to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Grade 1 Social Studies

By Audra Wallace
September 30, 2009

Your grandchild’s study of the world begins with a study of their own families and neighborhoods

The elementary-school social-studies curriculum introduces students to increasingly larger social circles, starting with their families and communities, then gradually expanding to their state, country, and world. Early in first grade, the focus is firmly on families, schools, and neighborhoods. Grandchildren will discuss how their school is made up of different families and how those families have different customs and traditions. They will also begin to develop an understanding of rules and laws, and how laws help people to be safe and responsible citizens within their community. Other topics include the roles of different public servants, or “helpers,” such as firefighters, police officers, postal workers, and librarians, and an introduction to economics, as kids study the ways people in a community trade goods and services with each other. Students will acquire basic geography skills by making and reading maps about their school and neighborhood. Later in the year, most textbooks begin to expand the idea of “community” to include the entire United States. Students learn about patriotic symbols and national holidays; our country’s government and early history; and key historic figures such as George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. Throughout the year, students will also learn to place events in time, identifying events and changes in their community as taking place “today,” “yesterday,” and “long ago.”

The New American Family. The structure of the “typical” American family has changed greatly in recent decades. Although certain types of families may not always be represented in first-grade literature, textbooks, or even classrooms, it is important that students understand that different types of families exist and that although families can be different in some ways, most are very much alike in other ways.

* First-graders love having books read aloud to them. It helps them increase their vocabulary and comprehension, and most important, it’s fun, especially when a grandparent is doing the reading. Judith Caseley’s On the Town: A Community Adventure (Greenwillow, 2002); Neil Chesanow’s Where Do I Live? (Barron’s Educational Series, 1995); Norah Dooley and Peter Thornton’s Everybody Bakes Bread (Carolrhoda Books, 1995); and Bonnie Pryor and Beth Peck’s The House on Maple Street (HarperTrophy, 1992) are all great read-alouds that complement the first-grade social-studies curriculum.

* The best way to teach a child about the importance of community and citizenship is to become a role model by getting involved yourself. Jay Walljasper’s The Great Neighborhood Book: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Placemaking (New Society, 2007) offers practical, hands-on suggestions for taking greater responsibility for your own community.

* First-graders are often asked to investigate and report on their own family’s history, and there’s no one better suited to help them with that than you. Recording your memories in a book like Teri Harrison’s Grandparents’ Memory Book: Did You Really Walk Five Miles to School? (Sta-Kris, 1997) will help you get started. It may become a treasured keepsake for your grandchildren.

Family Album. Have your grandchild draw a portrait of each member of your family. When they’re finished, staple all of the portraits together to create a family album. Don’t forget to make a cover!

Rules Rule. Rules are not just for school. They help keep plenty of other places safe and secure. When visiting a library, museum, or playground with your first-grader, look for rules posted on signs and read them together. Ask your grandchild about possible reasons for the rules. At the end of your visit, ask the child to suggest a new rule.

Community Discoveries. Join your grandchild on a scavenger hunt around your community. Use the list provided here.

Editor’s Note: Audra Wallace is a former elementary school teacher. She currently works as an associate editor for Scholastic’s classroom magazines.

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Source: Grandparants

Raw Video: Fire Rescue In Bronx

Good Samaritan

Hero of the Week – Horia Cretan

NY Post
October 1, 2009

A Good Samaritan, shown on video dramatically rescuing a child from a Bronx fire, has moved on to another great moment in his life — proposing to his girlfriend on live TV.

Horia Cretan got down on one knee on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, and told the woman, identified only as Desiree, there’s “never going to be a dull moment.”

She said, “Yes!” — and Cretan slipped a ring on her finger.

Moments earlier, Cretan recalled being in his store on Wednesday and hearing “desperate screams.”

He rushed outside, saw “waves of smoke” billowing from a fourth-floor window and used a ladder to get to the fire escape.

A firefighter handed him a limp, unconscious 4-year-old. Using a curtain as a shield from falling debris, Cretan carried the boy to safety.

“I broke the windows … the old man came out… he told me a boy was inside,” Cretan told WNYW-TV/Fox 5.

Cretan tried CPR on the boy.

“The little [CPR] I knew … when he opened his eyes it was a beautiful morning… I can’t wait to see him.”

The child is expected to survive.

Source NY Post

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think. dan@youngchronicle.com

Patient of the week – Abigail Perez

By St. Jude/PIO
Sept. 28,, 2009

5 years old

Diagnosis:

Abigail was found to suffer from acute myeloid leukemia in 2007.

Abigail’s Story:

Little Abigail had always been the picture of health, but one day during a family vacation, one of her eyes began to bulge. Concerned, her parents, Marcelle and Billy, took her for an examination at their local hospital. On July 16, 2007, the family learned Abigail suffered from acute myeloid leukemia. Doctors gave her a 50 percent chance of survival.

Hurricane Katrina had wreaked havoc on the hospital in their hometown. Garbage collected in the hallways. No one came to remove the food trays from Abigail’s room, and ants moved in. “We went into survival mode,” Marcelle said. Abigail’s parents wanted a research hospital to provide cutting-edge treatment for their daughter. Their search led them to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The local doctor provided the referral, and St. Jude took care of travel arrangements.

At St. Jude:

At St. Jude, a nurse greeted the family. “Are you Abigail?” she said. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Abigail was instantly put at ease and loved the hospital. When they got into their room at Grizzlies House, Marcelle told her husband, “I think she’s going to make it.”

Abigail’s six-month treatment protocol provided five intense rounds of chemotherapy, necessitating inpatient stays. Each time before chemotherapy, she received a bone marrow aspiration and spinal tap. In addition, Abigail received a combination of intravenous and oral antibiotics to strengthen her immune system.

The battle against cancer affects the entire family. One day, Marcelle broke down on the elevator, and it was a St. Jude maintenance man who provided words of comfort. “There’s no crying today, miss,” he said. “We do miracles here, so you just dry up those tears.” It was exactly what she needed to hear. These small, random acts of kindness accentuate the treatment at St. Jude and make the difference between this and other hospitals – at least for the Perez family.

“No other hospital in the world compares,” said Marcelle. “Everyone from Dr. Ribeiro to the maintenance staff is on a mission.”

St. Jude is the only pediatric cancer research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. “Insurance doesn’t matter here,” said Marcelle. “If she needs a test, she gets the test.” It’s a good thing too. Abigail’s treatment costs a minimum of $20,000 per month; complications increase the cost. “I really believe the treatment costs could have bankrupted us,” said Marcelle, “but what choice did we have? Thank God there is St. Jude where parents do not have to choose between the life of their child and the huge financial burdens of skyrocketing healthcare costs.”

Marcelle says they are “evangelical about St. Jude” and calls it the “Disney World of hospitals.” She appreciates so many things about the hospital, from their lodging at Target House, where every need is anticipated, to the hospital’s school program.

Abigail now tests negative for leukemic cells. She’s done with chemotherapy and returns to the hospital every four months for follow-up. She’s an active girl who loves swimming, riding her bike and watching shows like Dora the Explorer, Wonder Pets and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Source: St. Jude

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Wish of the Week – Maggie

By MWF/PIO
Sept.29. 2009

Greeted with a fragrant lei and a friendly “Aloha,” 10-year-old Maggie from Boynton Beach felt right at home during her wish trip to Hawaii. It was her ideal wish because of her love of the outdoors and her desire to have fun with her family. There’s so much to do and see in Honolulu and Maggie, who is battling leukemia, tried her hardest to do it all.

There was time for plenty of water activities including snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, with its horseshoe-shaped beach lined with mountains. To make her swim even more special, a turtle poked its head out to say aloha. She and her father also took a private surf lesson with the Hawaiian Fire Surf School at Kalaeloa Beach where the waves are tame enough for beginners to tackle.

At a traditional luau, Maggie and her family learned the hula, played island games and made their own leis. Maggie got a turtle painted on her arm and tasted the local specialty called poi. She had one word for the paste-like Polynesian favorite – “Eck!”

Having studied Hawaii in school, Maggie revisited her history class with a tour of the Battleship Missouri Memorial in Pearl Harbor. She even trekked to the top of Diamond Head, a dormant volcano, that she said is “like a crater.” She took a bus tour of Oahu, where she saw lots of breathtaking mountain and water views.

Maggie’s mother said, “It was a fantastic time for our whole family. Maggie had a ball every day.”

Wish Granters: Elaine Oswald & Carolyn Pucci
Referred by: a family friend
Adopted by: Jewelers for Children3

Source Make A Wish Foundation

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Soldier of the Week – Marine Corps 1st Lt. Elliot Ackerman

by Dan Samaria
Publisher/YC
Sept. 30, 2009

Editor’s Note:
Hometown: Washington D.C.
Awarded: Silver Star

Insurgents had a relatively free run of Fallujah the six months preceding November 2004. With little or no Coalition presence in the city, they had turned the urban landscape into a warren – like maze of fortified positions, booby traps, and sniper positions. The terrain could not have been more demanding for the Marines called in to clear the city. First, however, they had to establish a foothold, a task that fell in part to then-2nd Lt. Ackerman and his platoon. On November 10th, he and his men entered the city in what became a six-day struggle to open operational lines.

Insurgents attacked from numerous directions as Ackerman’s Marines pushed into the city. Twice in the early moments of the shooting, Ackerman braved enemy fire to pull injured Marines to safety – and then organized their evacuation. But in the midst of the battle, the vehicle sent to recover the injured could not find their position. Ackerman charged from his cover into the open, dodged what his citation calls a “gauntlet of deadly enemy fire,” and directed the vehicle to the Marines.

Later, as Ackerman and his team were clearing a building, he noticed that his Marines were exposed on a rooftop. After ordering them down, he took their place and began marking targets for tanks as insurgents fired at him from all directions. Despite suffering shrapnel wounds, Ackerman continued to direct the attack, and coordinated four medical evacuations. “There is only one alternative,” Lt. Ackerman said later. “It is to do it or not do it.” For his leadership and actions, Ackerman was awarded the Silver Star on Jan. 12, 2007.

Editor’s Note:

Hometown: Washington D.C.

Awarded: Silver Star

We would like to know what you think? dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

Source: Our Military

Officer of the week – Police Officer Vincent G. Danz

Remember September 11, 2001
Angels Among Us

Police Officer Vincent G. Danz
Shield 2166
ESS-3
10/27/2001

Police Officer Vincent G. Danz
Shield 2166
ESS-3
(recovered)

Vincent G. Danz was a member of the New York Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit’s third squad in the Bronx. The elite unit’s officers are experts in areas like psychology, rappelling, scuba diving, first aid and marksmanship. Officer Danz liked the excitement and challenge of the E.S.U.

Officer Danz, of Farmingdale, N.Y., was also a husband, and a father of three daughters, including an 8-month-old. With the two older girls, he liked to watch “SpongeBob SquarePants,” a Nickelodeon cartoon.

“He was a special breed,” Felix Danz said of his brother, who at 38 was the youngest of nine children. “I’d always ask him if he had any good jobs lately. He’d say, ‘Yeah, I had this subway “pin job,” ‘ where some poor soul was taken out by the subway, or even worse, still alive.”

“The E.S.U. guys are the ones who go on the tracks, find some way to lift up the train and get those people out,” Mr. Danz continued. “He wasn’t boastful. He wasn’t one of those guys with the swelled chest at the bar. He loved his work and the guys that he worked with. They would die for one another. I think that goes globally for the N.Y.P.D. My brother and his partner went into the trade center without any questions. They knew what to do and how to do it. Unfortunately, this thing was bigger than either of them.”

– The New York Times 10/27/2001

Source: NYP Angels

Firefighter of the week – Battalion Chief Battalion 57 Denis A Cross

By Dan Samaria
Publisher/YC
Oct. 1, 2009

 

Running for a Memory

The race seemed more important than ever. For 18 years, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Dennis Cross competed in the Turkey Trot, a 5- kilometer race held in Flushing Meadows, Queens, where firefighters ran for charity. Now he would be absent.

His wife, JoAnn, used to operate a fitness studio and induced him to run with her. But once the children arrived, she stopped running. That was 15 years ago.

Yet she felt an unshakable need to have a Cross in the Turkey Trot to honor her husband, a battalion chief of Battalion 57 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. So she concluded she would be that Cross. And she would recruit additional firefighters to run, too, in honor of all the firefighters lost in the attack.

Chief Cross, 60, known as Captain Fearless, lived with his wife in Islip Terrace, N.Y. His favorite saying was, “Take care of the men and the men will take care of you.” Mrs. Cross was going to take care of his memory. She vowed she would finish this race and then begin an annual memorial run for her husband next April 27, the anniversary of the day they met.

For nine weeks, she trained, building up endurance. Race day came. She ran, as did her four children. She finished in 29 minutes. “I thought I was going to do it in 45 minutes,” she said. “I was proud of myself.”
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 29, 2001.

At age 60, Dennis Cross had spent nearly two-thirds of his life as a firefighter in New York City.

And retirement wasn’t on his calendar anytime soon.

“He wanted to be the first to put in 50 years on the job,” said JoAnn Cross, his wife of 37 years.

Along with so many of his brethren, Cross’ career was cut short Sept. 11. The battalion chief for Battalion 57, based in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, was killed when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

His body wasn’t recovered until a week later.

“The first three days it was more than hell,” said his wife. “When they found him on the seventh day, that was such a relief because we could bring him home. So many of our friends haven’t been able to do that.”

As is common in the profession, fighting fires was a family affair. Cross’ father, Charles, was a New York firefighter, as is his only son, Brian.

Cross joined the department in 1963 after returning home from a two-year tour in Vietnam, where he served in an Army communications unit, JoAnn Cross said.

In the department, Cross was widely admired as a gutsy firefighter and, later, as a respected leader.

“He was a quiet guy, but powerful,” JoAnn Cross said. “When he made captain, they called him Captain Fearless.”

He was promoted to battalion chief in 1993.

A frequent runner who kept himself in excellent shape, Cross was looking forward to competing in an annual 5K race around the Thanksgiving holiday in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Now, JoAnn Cross hopes to turn the race into a fundraiser for a local charity that aids burn victims.

Cross is also survived by three daughters and three grandchildren.

An estimated 3,000 mourners, mostly firefighters, attended Cross’ funeral Sept. 22 in Islip Terrace, Long Island, where he lived.

Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.

Source Legacy

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