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Little lemur, big forest 🤩
If you've visited the Duke Lemur Center recently, you may have seen one-year-old Cirilla free-ranging with her family in one of our forest enclosures. This young ring-tailed lemur has been growing more adventurous up in the trees, although her parents and older brothers like to climb a little too high for her comfort. Cirilla is more sure-footed each day and excited to forage for all of the sweet flowers and leaves that the forest has to offer 🍃
You can watch lemurs like Cirilla run, jump, play, forage, and sunbathe by booking one of our Walking with Lemurs tours! Tickets are already available for all of May and June, and July tickets will go on sale this upcoming Tuesday at 11am ET. Go to lemur.duke.edu/wwl to learn more and book your visit ✨
📸: Sara Nicholson
🤩 THIS WEEKEND 🤩

Good news: we have the weather and staffing to run an off-season General Tour this Sunday 5/4! Like our summer General Tours, this tour is an open house format, and guests can arrive any time before 11:30am to walk around and see the lemurs. Because the lemurs' housing needs may mildly affect their visibility to guests, we are offering a discounted off-season rate of $15 per person for ages 18+ and $12 per person for ages 3-17 (children 2 and under are free) 🥳

Tickets MUST be purchased in advance to attend! Tickets and information are available on our website at lemur.duke.edu/GT 🎟

📸: David Haring
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Blue-eyed black lemur matriarch Leigh and her family out in the forest for the first time this summer 🥰
Eight-year-old Leigh, nine-year-old Lincoln, and their two-year-old son McAvoy free-ranged this morning for the first time since the August 2023 microburst storm that damaged all eleven of our natural habitat enclosures, as well as many of our animal care and administrative buildings. (Thankfully, no lemurs or people were injured in the storm!) With hard work and dedication from our staff, especially our husbandry technicians, we have been steadily repairing fences and removing debris in the past year and a half. While we were only able to free-range lemurs in a handful of habitats last summer, we're hopeful to have all eleven sections of forest fixed up and populated this year, allowing about a third of the Duke Lemur Center's residents to climb, jump, and forage in these multi-acre enclosures 💙
Many of our programs are partly or fully funded by donations! We're so grateful to everyone who helped out in the aftermath of the storm, as well as everyone who has continued to support the care and conservation of lemurs. You can make a tax-deductible donation to the Duke Lemur Center at lemur.duke.edu/donate ✨
📸: Sarah M.
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Love those blue eyes🩵💙so good they’re enjoying free-range again💚
They are the most gorgeous specimens of course so is Brady!! Love these pictures!!
I'm a sucker for anything blue-eyed and these beauties are no exception.
Happy #TongueOutTuesday from ring-tailed lemur Nikos 😜
This sweet male free-ranges in one of our smaller forest enclosures with his companion Brigitta and a pair of Coquerel's sifakas. Nikos and Brigitta were originally paired on a breeding recommendation through the ring-tailed lemur Species Survival Plan (SSP), but despite his best flirting efforts, Brigitta had no interest in mating with Nikos. She enjoys cuddling with him and exploring their forest enclosure together, but during breeding season, she makes it very clear that their relationship is purely platonic. Even if two animals are a perfect genetic match on paper, it's ultimately up to them (aka it's up to the female) whether or not they breed 😂
We happen to think Nikos is quite charming!
📸: Sara Nicholson
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I think Nikos needs to do a little "research". He's really quite handsome and should not have much trouble "hooking up" with someone else.
They are so sweet.
Wood 😋
Mongoose lemurs Clancy and Duggan snack on viburnum flowers in their natural habitat enclosure 🌸
17-year-old Duggan and 4-year-old Clancy are a father-son duo who also live with 18-year-old female Maddie, who is Clancy's mom. This family of mongoose lemurs are one of three species inhabiting this particular enclosure, along with a pair of Coquerel's sifakas and a pair of ring-tailed lemurs. While lemurs are very territorial with members of their own species, they don't mind sharing space with more distantly related species—as long as the ring-tailed lemurs don't get a little too frisky and start chasing the mongoose lemurs through the bamboo! We pair species that utilize different vertical space, so the sifakas normally forage higher in the trees than Clancy and family, while the ring-tailed lemurs are more terrestrial 🎋
📸: David Haring
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Ring-tailed lemur Sprite and her troop enjoy this season's hottest snack: pollen pods! 😋
This group is particularly fond of the pollen pods from sweet gum trees, whose leaves also happen to be a favorite of the DLC's folivorous Coquerel's sifakas. In the wild, ring-tailed lemurs live in the spiny desert in the southern part of Madagascar, and they have evolved hearty digestive systems that allows them to eat a much wider range of items than most lemur species. These opportunistic omnivores will eat not only fruit, veggies, leaves, and flowers, but also lizards, bugs, bark, and even dirt (a behavior called geophagy) 🌿
We're just glad SOMEONE is enjoying pollen season 😅
📸: Sara Nicholson
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I ❤️Sprite! And her little calls
They are so beautiful.
Animal Planet
🤩 THIS WEEKEND 🤩

Good news: we have the weather and staffing to run an off-season General Tour this Saturday 4/26! Like our summer General Tours, this tour is an open house format, and guests can arrive any time before 11:30am to walk around and see the lemurs. Because the lemurs' housing needs may mildly affect their visibility to guests, we are offering a discounted off-season rate of $15 per person for ages 18+ and $12 per person for ages 3-17 (children 2 and under are free) 🥳

We are also able to run off-season Walking with Lemurs tours this Saturday (4/26), Sunday (4/27), and Monday (4/28)! Tickets are limited, so make sure to grab them before they sell out. Just like during the summer, our Walking with Lemurs tours are $85 per person and open to guests ages 10+ 🤗

Tickets MUST be purchased in advance to attend! Tickets and information are available on our website at lemur.duke.edu/GT for the General Tour and lemur.duke.edu/wwl for the Walking with Lemurs tour 🎟

📸: David Haring; Sara Nicholson
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We’re so excited that black and white ruffed lemur Ripley has settled into her new home at Zoo de Granby! She will be moving in with Ziggy, a male who was paired with her for breeding through the black and white ruffed lemur Species Survival Plan, developed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) for this critically endangered species. Thanks to Air Canada, the world’s first airline to be awarded IATA’s CEIV Live Animals certification and recertification which provide guidance for the safe and humane transportation of animals, and for the compliance with applicable laws such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) 💙
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That's my boy! From San Antonio! Thanks for this amazing post, full of information and pictures 🥰😍
Welcome. Ziggy and Ripley. Thanks to the airlines for their safe transportation of the animsls.
Awesome. They are very gorgeous.
NEW RESEARCH: lemurs with egalitarian social structures have a greater number of oxytocin receptors than more female dominant species 🔍
researchblog.duke.edu/2025/04/21/how-changes-in-lemur-brains-made-some-mean-girls-nice/
In a study recently published in Biology Letters, researchers Allie Schrock and Christine Drea found that co-dominant Eulemur species, such as collared lemurs, have more oxytocin receptors than species with more domineering females, such as blue-eyed black lemurs, essentially giving them more targets for the "love hormone" to act on. The key difference was in the amygdala, a region of the brain typically associated with emotions such as fear, anxiety, and anger. According to Drea, this suggests that egalitarian species achieved gender parity by becoming less aggressive towards others overall, rather than males ramping up their aggression to match their female counterparts. The research could shed light on how hormones influence behavior in humans and other animals 😱
As with all of the research conducted at the Duke Lemur Center, this study was non-invasive, meaning that no lemurs were harmed in the process 💙
📸: David Haring
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Looking for something fun to do this Saturday afternoon? Visit our FREE monthly open house at the Duke Lemur Center Museum of Natural History! 💀
✅ Where: 1013 Broad Street (NOT the main DLC campus!)
✅ When: Saturday 4/26 from 1-4pm
✅ What: Take a look at the DLC's expansive fossil collection and our exhibit showcasing the evolutionary journey of lemurs and humans. Uncover the primate origin story and view fossils of extinct giant lemurs that roamed the island of Madagascar in the not-too-distant past!
✅ How much: FREE!!!!
Want to learn more? Visit lemur.duke.edu/fossil 🔍
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My friend and I are driving down from northern NY to Walk with Lemurs later this month - sooooo looking forward to it!!!!
I’m taking my mom on the Walking with Lemurs tour in June! Can’t wait!
Cirilla is beautiful. 🥰