Dear Natalie:

Regarding this paper, we were instructed to observe different animals and objectively

discuss their exhibited behaviors. Although I did attempt to maintain an objective point of view,

it seems a lot of my own analysis and observations were included in the paper, of which I was

unaware of. The feedback I received from my peer reviewers concerned mainly that I write more

concisely and to give more thought to the vocabulary utilized within my report, and to omit the

personal analysis I had incorporated until the last paragraph.

Initially, I was unsure as to how I could portray the animals’ behaviors without including

adjectives that would encompass a subjective voice; however, after carefully dissecting each

sentence and isolating each word, I was able to make more conscious word choices, which

ensured that every word in the paper carried a weight. Furthermore, this also enabled me to

discern the subjective tone in a few of my sentences.

I have attempted to incorporate more descriptive analyses such that readers would be able

to envisage a more holistic picture, which would further allow them to gain a substantial

understanding of the content within the videos.

Sincerely,

Vicky Huang

Syuan-Ya (Vicky) Huang

Psych 392A-Sec10

Natalie Bourdon

02/13/2022

In a video posted by PBS Nature, “Spy Quokka Meets a Joey”, it begins with the baby

quokka poking its head out from the mother’s pouch, looking around at its wide grassy

surrounding. Quokkas are members of the marsupial family, and like kangaroos the newborn

lives in the mother’s pouch for the first couple of months after birth, instead of running or

walking, they move around by hopping or bounding.

As the joey tumbles out of the pouch, he waits for his mother to take the first move and

trails closely behind her. Although unfamiliar with the outside world, the joey begins to explore

his new surroundings and interact with the other quokkas. Quokkas, like other non-domesticated

animals, exhibit primal behaviors —they get protective over food, their own offspring, and their

habitats. The behavior of food aggression was exhibited in the video, when the mother quokka

snatched food out from her own child’s mouth. At the end of the video, the three months old

baby quokka crawls back into his mother’s pouch after exploring and trying some solid food. As

observed from the clip, the baby quokka doesn’t spend that much time outside, and instead stays

inside the mother’s pouch.

The next video starts with a baby monkey that looks to be comfortably stretched out lying

on top of a sack while a human pets him. Once the petting motion halted, the baby monkey then

curls up into a ball. After consuming some bananas and berries, the baby monkey shifts next to

the stack of sacks, crouching by the bottom and carefully observing his surroundings. The baby

monkey then proceeds to return to the initial position he was in, fitting snugly in between the
woven burlaps. When the human blows the whistle, it instantly catches the baby monkey’s

attention.

The video proceeds to a clip of the baby monkey playing with two puppies, one black and

the other yellow. The interaction between the three animals is characterized by an air of

reservedness via playful pawing. While the baby monkey appears to be intrigued with the

puppies, it can be observed that he is still wary of them as seen in the repeated lurking and

backing out motion displayed. Similar to how a human baby is attracted to moving objects, the

wagging motion of the puppy’s tail captures the baby monkey’s attention as he repeatedly grabs

onto the tail several times. As the baby monkey plays with the puppies more, his behavior

becomes more dominant and the back and forth lurking motion subsides. At the end of the video,

the baby monkey digs out a rock from the pile he was lying on. He can be seen playing around

with it by rolling it around the floor and hitting it back and forth by himself.

After watching these two videos, we can see that baby animals, whether a joey or a baby

monkey, share several similarities with humans. The baby monkey in the video was intrigued but

also careful with the smallest thing, just like how human babies are always curious and like to

grab onto things they see on the floor or on the table. The baby quokka’s action of living inside

the mother quokka’s pouch can be associated with how human babies always feel more secure in

their mother’s arms, hence would always be held when he/she is crying. In the video, as the baby

monkey got used to the puppies, he began to be more playful and eventually lost his interest in

them, similar to how human newborns become tired of playing the same toy over and over again.