With nearly 40 years of experience working in Madagascar conservation (15 of which were spent living in Madagascar), Charlie Welch has an incredible wealth of wisdom to share. In this episode, we learn about the origins of the Duke Lemur Center’s conservation work in Madagascar. Then, we dive into the incredible story of 13 black […]
S4E6 Writing the History of My Country: Finding Extinct Lemurs
The fossil record of Madagascar is incredible. There are unicorn-horned meat-eating dinosaurs, colossal flightless birds, and lemurs the size of gorillas. Dr. Noromamy Rahanaharivao is a paleontologist in Madagascar who is excavating her country’s past biodiversity. She’s done research on monkey-like Archaeolemur and has searched flooded caves of Tsimanampetsotsa National Park for the remains of […]
S4E5 Tromping Around in Madagascar: Seed Dispersal and Lemurs
Forests are complicated places, and the species inhabiting forests are dependent on each other in a complex network that we call ecology. Camille Desisto is an ecologist and graduate student at Duke University, and she studies the interactions between plants and lemurs in Madagascar and at the Duke Lemur Center. Specifically, Camille looks at the […]
S4E4 How We Problem Solve: Ruffed Lemur Cognition
So how smart are lemurs, exactly? How do we even start to figure that out? Meet Ray Vagell, researcher and graduate student from Texas State University who uses SMARTA (a custom-designed touch screen system) to study how lemurs solve problems at the Duke Lemur Center. We also discuss the fun – but mysterious – fact […]
