Lemurs can really move. Like jumping-dozens-of-feet-from-tree-to-tree move. Like Tigger on a trampoline move. Dr. Gabe Yapuncich is a researcher at Duke University who is fascinated by this feat of lemur feet. He’s studied lemur bones and watched living lemurs launch off force plates at the Duke Lemur Center to understand how lemurs leap and hold themselves up in a tree, all to sort out the origins of these adaptations in our oldest primate relatives.
Links to learn more:
- Gabe’s Research Page
- Sifaka hopping on the ground like Tigger
- Sifaka leaping through the trees!
- 3D Scans on MorphoSource
- Gabe’s paper on primate ankles