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Eight-month-old Junius in his favorite position: upside down! 🙃
We can't believe Coquerel's sifaka Junius, the first infant of our 2026 baby season, is already eight months old! Junius is completely independent from parents Francesca and Remus, entertaining himself for hours on end, and his favorite activity is dangling upside down from the top of his screened-in outdoor patio. Both Francesca and Remus are relatively playful adults, so we expect that Junius will also retain his youthful energy as he grows up! 😝
📸: David Haring
Liesl's infants finally have names... Meet the honey bee twins, Karl and Melissa 🐝🐝
➡️ lemur.duke.edu/karl-melissa
Keeper Becca, the family's primary caretaker, named Karl after Austrian scientist Karl Von Frisch, who won a Nobel Prize for his research on honey bees and their "waggle dance." Melissa shares her name with a mythological nymph who fed honey to baby Zeus (the inspiration for the Greek word for "honey bee"), as well as Melissa Dean, the DLCs longtime Business Manager. Melissa, who was featured in a Duke Today story highlighting her fight against breast cancer, has worked with the DLC since 1988 and plans to retire in the upcoming year, and the Curatorial Team decided to honor her decades of dedication by bestowing Liesl's daughter with her name 💖
We can't think of more fitting name inspo for these stripey, energetic little forest dwellers, or a more fitting week to share them with the public! #PollinatorWeek 🤩
📸: Sara Nicholson
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Happy #PollinatorWeek to the world's largest pollinators, ruffed lemurs! 🌺
In Madagascar, critically endangered red ruffed and black-and-white ruffed lemurs love feasting on fruit and nectar. When they stick their noses into flowers to snack, pollen sticks to the ruffed fur around their faces and gets transported from flower to flower. Many plant species rely on pollinators like ruffed lemurs to reproduce and survive. Threats of extinction don't just impact endangered species like lemurs, but the entire ecosystem around them 🌎
📸: Sara Sorraia
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Ferdinand and Athena's first summer free-ranging together 🥰
Coquerel's sifaka Ferdinand is an experienced free-ranger, but new mate Athena was excited to explore her new forest habitat for the first time! As the dominant female, Athena is wearing a radio tracking collar so that our staff can locate her in the woods if she doesn't come back inside for her dinner bell. Ferdinand is a dedicated partner who follows Athena wherever she goes; if we can locate her, we're sure to find him nearby! 💕
🎥: Abby Flyer
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Our staff aren't the only primates excited about the Carolina Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup! 🏆
The Carolina Hurricanes fans on the husbandry team put together some celebratory hockey enrichment for our resident lemurs! Keeper Isabella turned aye-aye worm feeders into miniature hockey sticks and hung up photos of the team logo and mascot for visual enrichment, while Keeper Sarah K. set up a sign, goal, pucks, and hockey stick (smeared with tasty maple syrup) for blue-eyed black lemur Leigh and her family 🏒
No need for a heated rivalry here... there's plenty of enrichment to go around! 🤩
📸: Keepers Isabella and Sarah K.
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Pomona update: she just keeps getting cuter! 😍
Gisela's daughter is five months old! At this age, Pomona really looks like a miniature version of her mom. Pomona enjoys jumping around in the forest and snacking on leaves with her older brothers, but she always cuddles up with Gisela after an afternoon of adventure. Just like her grandfather, Jovian aka Zoboomafoo, Pomona is a little leaping lemur who loves to bounce and play! 💕
➡️ lemur.duke.edu/adopt
Want to keep up with Pomona and her family as she grows? You can symbolically adopt mom Gisela through our Adopt a Lemur program! Adopters get quarterly updates on the family, as well as access to adopter-exclusive materials, printable photos, and more! All purchases contribute to the care and conservation of lemurs, so it makes the perfect gift to yourself or a loved one ✨
📸: David Haring
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Chase away the Sunday Scaries with fat-tailed dwarf lemur siblings Sora and Swift 😛
While our keepers provide lots of soft nest spots for small nocturnal lemurs to curl up in, many fat-tailed dwarf lemurs actually prefer squeezing into tight PVC tubes to get extra cozy together. Sora and Swift can often be found snoozing side by side, while fellow littermate Cooper prefers to cuddle up with mom Java Chicken 😴
Fun fact: Fat-tailed dwarf lemurs at the DLC are named after birds! Swift's namesake is one of the most aerial birds in the world, capable of soaring through the skies for up to 10 months at a time without ever touching the ground. Sora is named after a small waterbird with a bright yellow bill, widespread in North America 🦆
📸: Keeper Sarah K.
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Make someone smile by gifting them a painting made by lemurs! 😁
➡️ shop.duke.edu/Paintings-by-Lemurs
Finger painting is one of our most colorful forms of enrichment! This activity is a great combination of sensory (feel/smell/taste of paint) and foraging (searching for tasty snacks) enrichment, and it's a completely voluntary activity that many lemurs enjoy. The paint we use is water-soluble and non-toxic, so it's okay if the lemurs eat a little bit. This also means the lemurs can groom the paint out of their own fur afterwards! 🎨
You can purchase lemur art through our online store or in person at our Lemur Landing Gift Shop! Choose a canvas size online and we'll surprise you with the artist, or visit in person to inspect all of the options and hand-select your favorite. All paintings come with a high-quality photo of the artist(s), a gallery-style ID tag, and information about the lemur species—and all sales contribute to the care and conservation of lemurs ☺️
🎥: Abby Flyer
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We're saddened to announce that Peter Klopfer, professor emeritus of Biology, civil rights activist, and co-founder of the Duke Lemur Center, died on June 5 at the age of 95. He is survived by his wife, Martha, and their three daughters.
Klopfer helped develop the field of behavioral ecology — the study of animal behavior and its evolution — and made seminal contributions to our understanding of mother-offspring bonding. His research helped elucidate the now well-known role played by the hormone oxytocin in mediating affective bonds.
He later developed a passion for dwarf lemurs’ ability to hibernate, and led a multidisciplinary team including sleep specialists, geneticists, field ecologists and physiologists, all focused on the causes and consequences of lemur hibernation.
Anne Yoder, Braxton Craven Distinguished Professor of Evolutionary Biology and former director of the Duke Lemur Center, describes Klopfer as a visionary. "The brilliance of Peter's mind was exceeded only by warmth and generosity of his heart."
Peter Klopfer, Civil Rights Activist and Co-Founder of the Duke Lemur Center, Died
trinity.duke.edu
Peter Klopfer, professor emeritus of Biology, civil rights activist and co-founder of the Duke Lemur Center, died on June 5 at the age of 95. He is survived by his wife, Martha, and their three daught...30 CommentsComment on Facebook
Aye-aye Aloka chews into her favorite part of her diet: a wood block filled with live worms 🪱
Meet Aloka! This seven-year-old aye-aye traveled to North Carolina from the San Diego Zoo in April to join our colony. Aloka (ah-LOO-kah) gets her name from the Malagasy word for "shade" or "shadow." She's the little sister of DLC resident Fady and daughter of Nirina! Weighing in at just about 2 kilograms, Aloka is currently the most petite aye-aye at the DLC 🥰
Fun fact: symbolic adopters of Fady, Aloka's sister, already found out about her arrival in their May adopt update! You can learn more about our Adopt a Lemur program and how you can keep up with the DLC's extraordinary residents while supporting the care and conservation of lemurs at lemur.duke.edu/adopt ✨
🎥: Abby Flyer
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