Coquerel’s Sifaka
Meet Baby Beatrice!
Join the staff of the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) in welcoming our newest Coquerel’s sifaka – Beatrice of Swabia (Beatrice for short). Born December 19, 2012, Beatrice weighed 107 grams at birth – a perfect weight for a newborn sifaka. She is in excellent health and growing leaps and bounds, weighing 257 grams at her...
Conservation Film Award!
A recently released conservation oriented film by the BBC, which features DLC’s own Dr. Erik Patel, has just won accolades at the International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Montana! http://wildlifefilms.wordpress.com/ In addition to Erik’s research on silky sifakas, “Madagascar, Lemurs, and Spies” also features undercover work by Sascha Von Bismarck of the Environmental Investigation...
Sifaka Birth Season: It’s a Wrap!
Sifaka birth season is now officially over! In addition to the birth of Pia’s infant, Gisela, on 7 January (reported earlier in this blog), 13 year old Rupillia gave birth to a son, Remus, on 12 January (sire is 24 year old Tiberius), and 4.5 year old Rodelinda gave birth to a daughter on 26...
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Conservation Endures…The first birth of 2012
Our thirteen year old Coquerel’s sifaka female, Pia, has became the first sifaka to deliver an infant this nascent 2012 birth season (a total of four sifaka females were pronounced pregnant by our Vet Staff). She gave birth to a female weighing 103 grams, in the early morning hours of January 7th. The infant’s sire...
Sifaka infant watch is on!
January is not my favorite month. The holidays are over, and with them all those wonderful three and four day work weeks. It’s cold, dreary and dark outside. The holiday cookies have all been eaten. But in all that dreary darkness there is one bright spot at the Lemur Center: January marks the true...
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Lemur Keeper
By Ben Soltoff, Duke ‘12 Voices crackle back and forth across the Duke Lemur Center as technicians radio one another about the upcoming VIP tour. In the kitchen, a few techs prepare a batch of aye-aye gruel while others check a whiteboard for the feeding schedule. Britt Keith, the Technician Supervisor, walks briskly through...
Ark of the Lemurs
by Dennis Meredith, Science Writer The Lemur Center is an unequalled refuge for lemurs, said Duke evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare. “This is the ark of the lemurs. There is no other place like this on the planet, and it is an amazing research resource, so we need to protect it as best we can. “The...
Overview
Coquerel’s sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi coquereli) are delicate leaf-eaters from the dry northwestern forests of Madagascar. In addition to P.verreauxi, there are three species of sifaka. These include the golden-crowned sifaka (LINK TO GOLDEN CROWNED) (Propithecus tattersalli) and the diademed sifaka (LINK TO DIADEMED SIFAKA) (Propithecus diadema diadema). Both Propithecus verreauxi and Propithecus diadema each have...
Feeding
Coquerel’s Sifaka feed on young leaves, flowers, fruit, bark and dead wood in the wet season, and mature leaves and buds in the dry season. Leaves make up a significant portion of the sifaka diet both in the wild as well as in captivity. In fact, the digestive system of these folivorous primates requires that...
Fact Sheet
Order: Primates; Suborder: Prosimii Family: Indriidae; Genus: Propithecus Species: verrauxi; Subspecies : coquereli Related Species See Diademed Sifaka. (LINK TO DIADEMED SIFAKA) Key Facts Adult Size : 7.3 – 9.9 pounds Social life : Sociable, small family groups of 3 – 10 animals of varying ages Habitat : northwestern dry deciduous forest Diet : young...
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