Aye Aye
New video series from the Kronos Quartet and Songs for Unusual Creatures
The latest installment from the Unusual Creatures project hit the Internet yesterday with the launch of a new video series exploring unusual creatures and the music they inspire. For the first episode, The Secret Life of Lemurs, host and composer Michael Hearst visits the Duke Lemur Center to meet the aye-aye, a strange and unusual...
Happy Holidays from the Duke Lemur Center
Happy Holidays to all! The staff and lemurs at the Duke Lemur Center would like to say thank you for all of your support this past year. We hope you enjoy this special time with family and...
Aye-Ayes Bring Musical Inspiration to Hearst and Kronos Quartet
Michael Hearst is a composer, instrumentalist, and writer and he recently released a new album entitled Songs for Unusual Creatures. Taking inspiration from some of the world’s strange and endangered animals, Hearst and his team of musician-composers used traditional and nontraditional instruments to invoke the essence of the strange and unusual. Tracks feature the honey...
Weighing babies at the Lemur Center
The first 73 hours after birth are the most critical for a baby lemur, and during this period, the baby is weighed every day to ensure that it is growing and thriving. It’s not always possible to observe the baby nursing, so the most reliable way to make sure the baby is feeding well is...
Madagascar Bound
I’ve been planning for months and months, and the day is finally arriving. I’m leaving tomorrow to spend my summer in Madagascar! I can’t believe I’m finally saying that, but I’m really leaving tomorrow! My name is Jennifer Moore and I’m a Master’s student at the Nicholas School of the Environment working towards my...
Elphaba outed!
News Flash: Ardrey the aye aye’s infant, Elphaba is out of the nest! She was sighted outside and away from the nest for the first time last Saturday, 2/11 at the age of 74 days. Once infants start leaving their mom’s nest they pretty much immediately start, somewhat tentatively at first, exploring the entire room...
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Growing up Aye-aye
Elphaba, the Duke Lemur Center’s most recent Aye-aye infant is now 57 days old and weighing in at...
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A State of Wonder
One of the aye-aye births at the Duke Lemur Center set a record in the species for reproductive longevity. The dam was estimated to be 26 years old at conception. The sire was 28 years old. 2010 also brought the first mouse lemur births at the Duke Lemur Center in more than 14 years. In...
Overview
Due to its bizarre appearance and unusual feeding habits, it is considered by many to be the strangest primate in the world. It is the world’s largest nocturnal primate. Unusual physical characteristics include incisors that are continually growing (unique among primates), extremely large ears, and a middle finger which is skeletal in appearance, and is...
Feeding
The aye-aye’s diet is very specialized, consisting mainly of the interior of Ramy nuts, nectar from the Traveller’s Palm tree, some fungi and insect grubs. The animals are also known to raid coconut plantations, and have been seen eating lychees and mangoes, which are also plantation crops. Most of what we know about the diet...
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