What Animals Tell Us About Ourselves: Meet Roland Kays

By Will Michaels,

Published October 12, 2015 at 11:55 AM EDT

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Roland Kays is the director of the biodiversity lab at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and a professor at N.C. State University. He has an interest in the ecology and conservation of animals, particularly mammals.

Roland Kays

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Kays holds an ocelot in July 2001.

Roland Kays

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Kays carrying a kinkajou in a trap in 1996. For his zoology doctorate, he researched the diet of the kinkajou.

Roland Kays

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Kays working with bats

Roland Kays

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Rob Nelson / Untamed Science

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Rob Nelson / Untamed Science

Roland Kays has spent his life studying the behavior and history of animals.

It started in high school when he ran the eggs of a fruit fly through an x-ray machine at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The experiment did not yield the results he wanted, but it did lead to a life as a zoologist.

Today, Roland has a number of expeditions under his belt, including trips to Africa and South America. In 2013, he was part of the team that discovered a new relative of the raccoon, called the olinguito.

The olinguito is the first new species of carnivore discovered in the western hemisphere in 35 years.

Kays' latest work is uncovering more about climate change by comparing animal specimens from 100 years of data from Mt. Kenya.

Host Frank Stasio talks with Kays, director of the Biodiversity Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, about his life and career.