Between July 6-17, 2026, the entire DLC Museum of Natural History team was in the Green River Basin of Wyoming, searching for the fossils of lemur-like primates that lived in North American forests a few million years after the dinosaurs went extinct. Collaborating with Minnesota-based paleontologist Anne Kort, we explored sites in the high-altitude South […]
By Greg Dye, Duke Lemur Center Executive Director. Published October 28, 2026. For more than 60 years, the Duke Lemur Center has been a global leader in lemur care, conservation, education, and scientific discovery. Today, it is home to the most diverse population of lemurs outside of Madagascar, serving as an irreplaceable resource for researchers, […]
Read the Duke Lemur Center’s Stakeholder Update, sent to our donors on August 26, 2026. Questions? Contact Mary Paisley, DLC Development Director, at mary.paisley@duke.edu. August 2026 Stakeholder Update Sunshine, one of the DLC’s black and white ruffed lemurs, demonstrating “splooting” (stretching out) on the forest floor. The fur around her abdomen is not as fluffy […]
Fossil study finds that vision—not the ‘thinking’ frontal lobe—drove varied brain development in primates By Fedor Kossakovski, University Communications & Marketing. Published August 7, 2026. View the original. A new study led by a Duke University scientist overturns a long-held idea about how primates, including humans, came to have such large and sophisticated brains. The research finds […]
By Matt Borths, Ph.D., Curator of the DLC Museum of Natural History. Originally published in LEMURS Magazine: Reasons for Hope in February 2026. I was a dinosaur kid. I loved getting books from the library filled with weird dinosaur names and fun facts. This blizzard of ancient Greek and solid numbers led me to believe […]
Read the Duke Lemur Center’s Stakeholder Update, sent to our donors on January 20, 2026. Questions? Contact Mary Paisley, DLC Development Director, at mary.paisley@duke.edu.
Posted 11/11/25. Learn all about paleontology with DLC Museum of Natural History Curator Matt Borths! On 11/24/25 from 1:00-1:45pm ET, Exploring By The Seat Of Your Pants will be hosting a livestream with Matt. Matt is a paleontologist who studies the evolution of animals in Africa, particularly the evolution of carnivorous mammals – including some […]
Posted August 13, 2025. This year, the Duke Lemur Center—like many university-affiliated institutions—is navigating unprecedented financial challenges due to sweeping changes in federal funding. These shifts have created significant gaps in our budget, threatening the momentum we’ve built in lemur care, groundbreaking research, and global conservation. General fund gifts are our top priority right now. […]