Crowned lemur Ma'at is just checking to see if you've planned your summer visit to the Duke Lemur Center 👀
➡️ lemur.duke.edu/visit
Our tour season is in full swing, and we're excited to welcome lemur lovers from around the world to see our incredible colony and learn about the work we do to care for and protect Earth's most endangered mammals! You must purchase tickets in advance in order to see the lemurs, and we have a variety of tour types for different ages, price points, and levels of interest:
🌟 General Tour: All ages, open house style (similar to a zoo visit) with educators stationed at each enclosure to tell you about the lemurs. Usually offered on Thursday and Friday evenings (5-7pm) and Saturday and Sunday mornings (10am-noon), $12-$17 per person
🤩 Private Tour: All ages, a personalized version of our General Tour that visits the same animals along the tour path, but with one dedicated tour guide just for you and your small group. Usually offered on Monday and Friday mornings, $180 per group (private tour of 1-15 people)
🍃 Walking with Lemurs: Ages 10+, takes you into the DLC’s famous Natural Habitat Enclosures, where you can view the lemurs in the trees of large, forested habitats from just six feet away, and with no barriers between you and the lemurs! Usually offered on all mornings except Tuesdays, $85 per person
👀 Behind the Scenes: Ages 10+, a peek behind the animal care curtain of the DLC with up close views of feedings and enrichment sessions. Usually offered on all afternoons except Tuesdays, $400 per group (private tour of 1-4 people)
Tours are currently available for booking through the end of July! August tours will go on sale in June, and September tours will go on sale in July 🎟
📸: Abby Flyer
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One question we get all the time on tours: how do you get the lemurs back into the building at the end of the day? The answer: ringing a dinner bell! 🛎️
Before free-ranging lemur troops are allowed to roam in our multi-acre forest enclosures, they have to complete months of positive reinforcement training, learning to associate the sound of a specific bell with receiving high-value snacks in their indoor enclosures. Lemurs are incredibly food-motivated, so no matter where they are in the forest, they will run, leap, or hop their way back to the building, allowing our staff to safely lock them in overnight ☺️
🎥: Abby Flyer ... See MoreSee Less
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Happy 30th birthday to Hunter, one of the ✨stars✨ of our summer tour path and the current oldest ruffed lemur at the DLC 🥳
Red ruffed lemur Hunter turned 30 this past weekend, an incredible milestone that not many lemurs reach, even in human care. Hunter's keepers made him this adorable celestial birthday celebration, complete with a yummy jello cake filled with bananas and grapes. Hunter will be spending this summer living on our summer tour path with his granddaughter, Pandora, so be sure to say hi when you visit on a Private Tour or General Tour! 🌟
📸: Keeper Isabella ... See MoreSee Less
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Join us for an immersive day of discovery this summer! 🤩
➡️ alumni.duke.edu/careers-learning/lifelong-learning/duke-exclusives
On 6/17 and 8/12, in collaboration with Forever Duke, we will be running events from 8:30am to 1:30pm offering a unique behind-the-scenes look at how science and conservation come together to protect the extraordinary primates at the Duke Lemur Center. This immersive program is designed for curious minds of all ages (10 and up) and will include a visit into a natural habitat enclosure to see lemurs free-ranging, behind the scenes access to research spaces, and direct engagement with specialists in the field. Registration is $149/person and run through the Duke Alumni Association, but you do not have to be affiliated with Duke to sign up and attend! 💙
📸: Sara Nicholson ... See MoreSee Less
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For supermom Liesl, running her troop and caring for her infants are all just part of a day's work 😎
➡️ lemur.duke.edu/adopt/ultimate/liesl-infant
This isn't 17-year-old Liesl's first rodeo; her two-month-old son and daughter are the 8th and 9th offspring from this experienced ring-tailed lemur momma. While many lemurs tend to have one infant at a time, twins are relatively common in ring-tailed lemurs. Hailing from the spiny desert in southern Madagascar, ring-tailed lemurs are incredibly adaptable, able to subsist on a broad diet that can include lizards, bugs, and even dirt in resource-scarce seasons. Wild ring-tailed lemur moms are more likely to have singletons in years where there isn't quite enough food to go around and twins (or even, occasionally, triplets!) when resources are more readily available. At the Duke Lemur Center, singletons and twins are both common—Liesl has actually had three singletons and three sets of twins! 👶👶
Looking to make a massive impact on the care and conservation of Earth's most endangered mammals? For a tax-deductible donation of $20,000, you can symbolically adopt and name BOTH of Liesl's infants! Visit our website to learn more at lemur.duke.edu/ultimate or email us at adoptalemur@duke.edu ✨
📸: Sara Nicholson ... See MoreSee Less
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We're excited to welcome a new Coquerel's sifaka to the Duke Lemur Center... Say hello to Bertarido! 🤩
Bertarido spent the last 21 sunny years in California. He was born at the LA Zoo, spent a few years at the Sacramento Zoo, and most recently lived at the San Diego Zoo before transferring to the Duke Lemur Center last month. He was introduced to four-year-old Cornelia, and the pair bonded almost immediately, snacking on leaves side-by-side and grooming one another. Thus far, Bertarido seems to enjoy sunning himself in his screened-in outdoor patio and spending quality time with his new companion ☀️
➡️ lemur.duke.edu/wishlist
Want to send Bertarido a housewarming gift? You can send enrichment items and snacks for Bertarido and his neighbors to enjoy, as well as supplies (like gloves, zip ties, and scrubs) that help our husbandry team care for the nearly 250 lemurs that call the DLC home, by visiting our Amazon wishlist! ✨
📸: Keeper Leah (1,2,4); David Haring (3) ... See MoreSee Less
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"There are still mysteries to solve," says Matt Borths. "Science isn't finished." 🔍
➡️ lemur.duke.edu/topernawi
In 2025, members of the DLC's Museum of Natural History team explored a new window into an ancient world, filled with previously unknown, extinct animals. DLCMNH Curator Matt Borths and Digital Collections Manager Kate Neely traveled across the globe to Topernawi, a site along the shores of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya where paleontologists recently unearthed a 29-million-year-old fossil. No mammalian fossils from anytime close to that had ever been discovered near Lake Turkana. In fact, no productive fossil site near the equator in Africa had ever been dated to this crucial window of time, when genetic and sparse fossil evidence suggests that apes originated. If paleontologists could find more fossils from this area, maybe they could piece together the environment that shaped our tail-less ancestors 🦴
➡️ lemur.duke.edu/podcast/a-busy-time-in-primate-evolution-spring-2026
You can learn more about the DLC's Topernawi adventure by reading Matt's article, published in the most recent edition of our annual magazine and available on our blog, or by listening to the newest episode of Aye-aye Pod, the DLC's official podcast, where Matt and co-host Megan McGrath break down details of the trip and what insight the team's discoveries could lend to the evolution of early primates ✨ ... See MoreSee Less
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Crowned lemur Ma'at is just checking to see if you've planned your summer visit to the Duke Lemur Center 👀
➡️ lemur.duke.edu/visit
Our tour season is in full swing, and we're excited to welcome lemur lovers from around the world to see our incredible colony and learn about the work we do to care for and protect Earth's most endangered mammals! You must purchase tickets in advance in order to see the lemurs, and we have a variety of tour types for different ages, price points, and levels of interest:
🌟 General Tour: All ages, open house style (similar to a zoo visit) with educators stationed at each enclosure to tell you about the lemurs. Usually offered on Thursday and Friday evenings (5-7pm) and Saturday and Sunday mornings (10am-noon), $12-$17 per person
🤩 Private Tour: All ages, a personalized version of our General Tour that visits the same animals along the tour path, but with one dedicated tour guide just for you and your small group. Usually offered on Monday and Friday mornings, $180 per group (private tour of 1-15 people)
🍃 Walking with Lemurs: Ages 10+, takes you into the DLC’s famous Natural Habitat Enclosures, where you can view the lemurs in the trees of large, forested habitats from just six feet away, and with no barriers between you and the lemurs! Usually offered on all mornings except Tuesdays, $85 per person
👀 Behind the Scenes: Ages 10+, a peek behind the animal care curtain of the DLC with up close views of feedings and enrichment sessions. Usually offered on all afternoons except Tuesdays, $400 per group (private tour of 1-4 people)
Tours are currently available for booking through the end of July! August tours will go on sale in June, and September tours will go on sale in July 🎟
📸: Abby Flyer ... See MoreSee Less
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Afternoon mimosa leaves for Junius and family 🌿
Coquerel's sifakas like Francesca, Remus, and Junius are folivores, meaning their diet consists primarily of leaves. All of the sifakas at the DLC are fed fresh leaves daily, and our keepers have a wide selection of species to collect out in the Duke Forest! Mimosa leaves are an absolute favorite for many sifakas, but other popular picks include redbud, winged sumac, sweetgum, and tulip poplar 🍃
📸: David Haring ... See MoreSee Less
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Meet Schwepps, a first-time dad and the sire of Liesl's two-month-old twins! 🥹
11-year-old Schwepps and his twin brother, Seagrams, were born at Busch Gardens in Tampa and moved to the Duke Lemur Center at the beginning of 2021. Last June, Schwepps was recommended for breeding with ring-tailed lemur female Liesl and moved in with her and her daughters. Schwepps has always been a very polite male, so he initially kept his distance from the females, but he eventually ingratiated himself within the troop (albeit at the bottom of the hierarchy, as the sole male) ✨
Since the twins' birth in March, Liesl's older daughter, Hedwig, has become very protective of her mom and new baby siblings. This means that Schwepps isn't allowed to get close to the females and infants, though he still hovers in the periphery to keep an eye on them. While this might sound sad to us humans, this is relatively common behavior in female-dominant lemur troops, and most ring-tailed lemur dads are notoriously uninvolved with infant care. Older siblings like Hedwig are much more hands-on, which prepares them to eventually become moms to their own infants. We expect to see much more interaction between Schwepps and the babies once they get a bit bigger and become more independent from mom! 😊
Schwepps' favorite activities include stink flirting with Liesl, scent-marking every single stick in the forest, and sun worshipping on warm summer afternoons ☀️
📸: Abby Flyer ... See MoreSee Less
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Happy Mother's Day to primate moms of all species (including humans!) 💐
Did you know that 95% of lemur species are female dominant? Moms most often assume the role of dominant female in a group of lemurs, and the rest of the family will follow wherever mom roams. The dominant female gets first dibs on food, comfortable napping spots, and patches of sunlight, and the rest of the group will move to accommodate her 💖
📸: David Haring (sifaka mom Gisela with daughter Pomona, crowned lemur mom Tasherit with daughter Seshat, and blue-eyed black lemur mom Wiig with daughter Gellar) ... See MoreSee Less
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