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Duke Lemur Center

14 hours ago

It's cold weather days like today that really make us miss summer free-ranging weather ⛅️

Ring-tailed lemur Griselda spends warm summer days out in a fourteen acre free-ranging enclosure with her family. One of her favorite activities is basking in the sun. Lemurs tend to bask in a "sun worshiping" position to maximize sun exposure on their chests and bellies. This is a form of thermoregulation, as the sunshine helps warm them up. On particularly hot days, lemurs will press their bellies against trees or lie flat on their stomachs to cool down, thanks to the cooler surface temperatures of the ground or wood 🪵

📸: Sara Nicholson ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

3 days ago

Looking to get involved with the Duke Lemur Center this summer? 👀

➡️ careers.duke.edu and search keyword "lemur"

If you love public speaking and spending time outdoors, our seasonal educator position might be for you! ☀️

The DLC's education department is looking to hire seasonal educators to help lead tours and other public programs this summer. Positions are part-time, with an average schedule of 15-20 hours/week. Applications are currently open! 🤗 ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

3 days ago

Coquerel's sifaka Camilla loves her veggies 😋

Did you know that we have individualized diet plans for each animal in our care—just under 250? While we order most of our veggies, we also have an organic garden on-site and try to grow as much of the lemurs' diets as we can. Every day, our lemurs get a mixture of high- and low-value veggies, as well as a leafy green, like kale. We rotate foods throughout the week so that our lemurs get a nice variety of fresh produce 🥬

Remember, kids: even Zoboomafoo eats his veggies!

📸: David Haring ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

5 days ago

Happy #FossilFriday! 💀

Just how large was Megaladapis, an extinct giant lemur? For scale, here's gray mouse lemur Seaweed sitting atop a replica of a Megaladapis skull! Gray mouse lemurs like Seaweed are the smallest lemur species housed at the Duke Lemur Center, at about three inches tall. Megaladapis would have been about the size of a gorilla 😱

You can learn about Megaladapis and other extinct fossil primates at our FREE monthly open house at the Duke Lemur Center Museum of Natural History! The first open house of 2025 will be held on January 25th from 1-4pm at the DLCMNH on Broad Street. No reservations required! ✨

📸: David Haring ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

6 days ago

Happy 3rd birthday to our youngest aye-aye, Binx 🥳

Big boy Binx was born on this day in 2022 to mom Fady and dad Grendel. You may have met this curious young lemur during one of our Wild Workshops or afternoon Behind the Scenes tours, or you may simply be a fan of his photos on social media. Like all of his fellow aye-ayes at the DLC, Binx's name has spooky connections—Thackery Binx from Hocus Pocus. His favorite snacks are honey and nuts, and he loves spending time with his mama 🍯🥜

📸: David Haring ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

6 days ago

Looking for an in-depth look at the world of lemurs? Check out our Behind the Scenes tours! 🤩

➡️ lemur.duke.edu/engage/onsite-tours/2022-bts-tour/

The Behind the Scenes tour is a private, customizable experience for groups of 1-4 guests that involves a look "behind the curtain" at everything that goes into caring for the nearly 250 primates in our colony. Your group, along with one of our expert education staff members, will check out areas off-limits to most guests, including the inside of our animal housing buildings and one of our small nocturnal colony rooms. The morning version of the tour includes watching lemurs enjoy their breakfast, while afternoon tours will take a peek at our elusive aye-ayes. This is also our most customizable tour—if you have a species you'd like to see, a topic you'd like to learn about, or a list of questions you've been dying to ask, our staff will do their best to accommodate your request and shape the tour to your group's interests 🤗

Behind the Scenes tours can be booked now on our website! Afternoon dates through the end of March are available for purchase, and morning dates will be added throughout the winter/spring as we determine which of our other weather-dependent tours we will be able to offer 📆

📸: David Haring ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

1 week ago

Mother knows best 💕

Can you believe Coquerel's sifaka infant Arcadius is already three months old? This little guy is starting to look more and more like mom Gisela as he grows into his face. He's also starting to steal more of mom's food, including the piece of folivore chow—a manufactured food designed for leaf-eating primates in human care—that he's eating in the third photo 😋

In the wild, leaves comprise about 40-60% of sifakas' diet, and they have been recorded to eat as many as 98 different plant species. Here at the DLC, we feed our sifakas a mixture of folivore chow, fresh veggies, nuts, and beans each morning, and we distribute leaves to our sifakas every afternoon 🌿

You can keep up with Arcadius and his family by symbolically adopting Gisela through our Adopt a Lemur program! You'll get quarterly updates on the family and a custom adoption packet, and your donation will go towards lemur care and conservation. A win-win! Learn more at lemur.duke.edu/adopt ✨

📸: David Haring ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

1 week ago

Happy #MadagascarMonday! We're excited to announce that the 2025 DLC-SAVA Newsletter is now out 🤩

➡️ connect-technology.net/SAVA2025/index.html#p=1

From environmental education and sustainable farming to lemur research and landscape restoration, our team in the SAVA region of Madagascar has had a busy year working hard to protect lemurs and their environment in collaboration with local communities. Looking forward, we are optimistic that our community focused approach to conservation helps people meet their needs with nature-based solutions that develop resilience and adaptation to future global change. We trained multiple generations of students, scientists, and farmers who will continue this work into the future because they see the positive impacts in their communities. With the right people leading the charge, and the right tools in their hands, long-term conservation success is possible 💚

➡️ lemur.duke.edu/welch-katz-fund/

In honor of DLC Conservation Coordinator Charlie Welch's upcoming retirement, we have created the Charles Welch and Andrea Katz Fund, an endowment fund to support the Duke Lemur Center in perpetuity. Gifts of any size are welcome and are tax-deductible! Visit the link above to learn more 🤗

As always, you can learn more about our conservation programs at lemur.duke.edu/conservation, and keep an eye out for upcoming #MadagascarMonday updates! ✨ ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

2 weeks ago

Missing our sunny summer days in the forest 🥺

To distract from the snowy forecast this weekend in North Carolina, enjoy some lush, green photos of black-and-white ruffed lemurs Orbit, Sputnik, and Bruno out in their summer forest enclosure. Don't worry about any of your fluffy friends catching a chill—our lemurs are all snuggled up in their warm indoor housing! ❄️

📸: Sara Nicholson ... See MoreSee Less

Duke Lemur Center

2 weeks ago

Celebrating #ThrowbackThursday with some more archive photos from 1976 📸

The Duke Lemur Center was originally founded in 1966 as a non-invasive research facility, and we've grown over the past 58 years to include conservation and education as key parts of our mission. In its earlier days, the DLC (known then as the Duke University Primate Center) used to house a broader range of primate species. Now, under the guidance of the Prosimian Taxon Advisory Group (PTAG), we are focused on maintaining healthy, genetically diverse populations of fewer species, ensuring that we have the facilities and resources to support all of the lemurs in our care 💙

Shoutout to volunteer Cindy for her hard work digitizing all of these #tbt photos!

📸: Katie Boskoff ... See MoreSee Less