The time is now

Duke Lemur Center

8 hours ago

Meet Fady the Aye-aye! 💙

➡️ lemur.duke.edu/adopt

10-year-old Fady is a small girl with a big personality! She lives with 15-year-old Grendel and is easily identifiable as the more petite of the two. Fady is incredibly smart and is a fantastic participant in positive reinforcement training; she will even dangle upside down and voluntarily allow veterinarians to perform ultrasounds while her keeper feeds her snacks! Her name, pronounced "fah-dee," means "taboo" in Malagasy 🌍

Want to keep up-to-date with Fady while supporting the care and conservation of the world's most endangered mammals? You can symbolically adopt Fady (and take home your own plush version of this amazing aye-aye!) in person at our Lemur Landing Gift Shop or online at lemur.duke.edu/shop ✨

📸: David Haring ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

1 day ago

Meet Gisela the Coquerel's Sifaka! 💙

➡️ lemur.duke.edu/adopt

13-year-old Gisela is the daughter of Jovian—the famous lemur who played Zoboomafoo in the eponymous show—and has quite the family of her own! She and 15-year-old Rupert have had six offspring together, and Gisela became a grandmother for the first time this year with the birth of grandson Radama the Great. Lemurs are female dominant, and Gisela is a fantastic example of a strong, powerful matriarch who gets what she wants, when she wants it. Her favorite place to be is up in a tree, eating the tastiest new leaves straight off the branch 🌿

Want to keep up-to-date with Gisela while supporting the care and conservation of the world's most endangered mammals? You can symbolically adopt Gisela (and take home your own plush version of this beautiful Coquerel's sifaka!) in person at our Lemur Landing Gift Shop or online at lemur.duke.edu/shop ✨

📸: Sara Nicholson (1,4); Abby Flyer (2); Bob Karp (3) ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

3 days ago

Meet Randy the Ring-tailed Lemur! 💙

➡️ lemur.duke.edu/adopt

19-year-old Randy has been contributing to the ring-tailed lemur Species Survival Plan (SSP) since 2010, when the first two of his 20 total offspring were born. This super dad is far more involved with his offspring than most ring-tailed sires, often helping his mates groom and care for their infants. He currently lives with 20-year-old Sophia and four of their daughters. Randy is a laid-back individual who loves sunning and snacking, and he is a favorite among staff members for his luscious tail and go-with-the-flow attitude 😊

Want to keep up-to-date with Randy while supporting the care and conservation of the world's most endangered mammals? You can symbolically adopt Randy (and take home your own plush version of this handsome ring-tailed lemur!) in person at our Lemur Landing Gift Shop or online at lemur.duke.edu/shop ✨

📸: Sara Nicholson ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

5 days ago

Join us on livestream to continue the World Lemur Day celebrations all the way from Madagascar! 🥳

➡️ www.youtube.com/live/Oa1J84aqnOk

Tomorrow (11/7) at 9AM ET, our Duke Lemur Center team in Madagascar will be tuning in live for a belated World Lemur Day celebration in Northeast Madagascar. With a variety of activities to raise awareness about lemurs, our team will give you a brief taste of what our education program is really like. With the vast rainforest and the Indri singing in the background, it will be an unforgettable experience 🍃

Link to watch is also in stories! The video will be available after the fact if you aren't able to join us live 🤗 ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

5 days ago

Family forest time with Cassia, Eustace, and Radama the Great 🍂

Seven-month-old Radama is finally big enough to keep up with his mom and dad as they leap from tree to tree! Coquerel's sifakas Cassia and Eustace are young first-time parents, and they've been doing a fantastic job raising their little boy. Radama, who was named after a Malagasy king through our Ultimate Adopt program, is the great-grandson of Jovian aka Zoboomafoo 👑

📸: Keeper Sarah K. ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

6 days ago

Happy Wednesday from crowned lemur brothers Shezmu and Nedjem 🤗

We are currently in the midst of peak breeding season for many lemur species living here at the DLC, and it's very evident when you walk by and smell the boys' enclosure! Lemurs are scent-based communicators, so flirting looks a lot different in the lemur world. While both sexes have scent glands near their butts, males of most species have additional scent glands to aid in marking their territory to attract females. Crowned lemurs like Shezmu and Nedjem scent mark with their wrists and foreheads, smearing a scent on branches that alerts nearby females to their fitness and health, hoping to be chosen as a breeding partner 💪

Unfortunately for these males, they are not currently slated for breeding, so no eligible ladies will be arriving to appreciate their smelly bachelor pad. That doesn't stop Nedjem from scent marking so fiercely that he wears a bald spot into the center of his forehead! 😂

📸: David Haring ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

1 week ago

The start of hibernation season means lots of sleepy fat-tailed dwarf lemurs 😴

The DLC's colony of fat-tailed dwarf lemurs, the world's only hibernating primates, are starting to slow down for the winter! While their hibernation coincides with cold temperatures here in North America, fat-tailed dwarf lemurs actually hibernate at tropical temperatures in Madagascar's dry deciduous forests, gorging themselves on fruit during the abundant wet season and curling up for a looooooooong nap during the resource-scarce dry season. Just like you might put your phone on low power mode to save limited battery power, dwarf lemurs put their bodies into a state called torpor, lowering their metabolic rate so that they can survive up to six months on nothing but the fat stored in their tails 😱

Through non-invasive research, our scientists are trying to discover how exactly these incredible primates hibernate at tropical temperatures, potentially unlocking a form of human hibernation that could be beneficial for medical care and space travel 🩺🚀

You might not be able to see any fat-tailed dwarf lemurs during winter visits to the DLC—don't worry, they're busy participating in science! ✨

📸: David Haring ... See MoreSee Less