This is one of my favorite enrichment items for lemurs. We hang these small bags on the branches and put just a few pieces of dried fruit in each one. It’s quite cute to watch them go through the bag. I tried to get a picture of each of our 6 lemurs using their enrichment.
Lycus
Satyrus
Cassandra
Cynthia
Iris
Here’s my favorite, Iris photo-bombing Jethys picture
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The red ruffed lemurs have been off exhibit since December. We have just a couple of weeks left until it is warm enough for the ring tailed lemurs to be outside during the day and the red ruffed lemurs to move upstairs, on exhibit. Here is where we were last time I updated about training- click here.
While our focus was going to be crate training we also added the behavior of station. Station is a way to 1) separate the lemurs if necessary 2) keep a lemur in one spot while working with the others. The red ruffed have access to three stalls. In each stall we have a shelf attached to the door. These shelves are where we would like the lemurs to ‘station’. But how do they know which one of them should station on which shelf? Great questions- we hang up symbols on the doors, above the shelves. Each lemur has their own specific symbol. Stationing is going great!
Crate training is also going well. The door has been shut on Cynthia and we’re very close to shutting the door on Jethys and Iris.
The ring tailed lemurs are still doing great with their crate training. Dr English will visit in the next few months and our oldest lemurs Lycus (almost 28) and Cynthia (almost 32) will have to be crated and brought to the building to get their eyes checked out.
Jethys symbol for station is a star
Iris’ symbol for station is a moon
Cynthia symbol for station is a diamond
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Back when people first explored Madagascar there was a 400 lb lemur the size of a gorilla! Unfortunately, due to hunting this species was quickly wiped out. Today the largest living lemur is the Indri.
Indri Lemur
This lemur is two and a half feet in length and typically weighs 13-15 lbs. It’s a diurnal lemur that feeds on canopy fruit and leaves and travels through the tree tops, often leaping 30 feet between tree trunks! They are known for their very distinct songs and sounds. These songs can be heard over a mile away and can last up to 3 minutes at a time.
They live in small family groups of 2-6 individuals. Indri lemurs typically live to be 15-18 years old but can live into their 20′s.
Their reproduction is quite different than other lemurs. Reaching sexual maturity later in life, around ages 7 to 9, as well as having offspring only every 2-3 years equals a low birth rate. With it’s population already low, habitat loss and hunting only add to the dwindling numbers of Indri lemurs. This lemur is very hard to keep in captivity which makes breeding programs hard to come by. This lemur is listed as Endangered.
Indri Lemur
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Mimi, in the water as she often is in the summer, with her fancy nut-ice block
You would think that being native to Madagascar makes it a breeze for our lemurs during the summer. However, it gets much hotter in North Carolina than it would in the treetops of the Malagasy jungle, so we have air conditioning for the indoor areas- keeping the temperatures around 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
shade for the lemurs from their shelter
Keepers watch the Farmyard animals closely too. Some of the exhibit areas have big shady trees, for others we add umbrellas that the animals can stand under. Shade cloth is added to the top of our hawk and owl cages. Fans go up in every window. We check water levels at least three times each day, adding “water balloon ice cubes” to keep the water cool. Rabbits, the ones most susceptible to heat issues, get frozen water bottles to lean up against.
Lightning, Rocky and Patches hang in the shade.
So be safe and try to stay cool.
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…Helps the medicine go down!
Keeper Jill wrote a post “Time for your medicine” about all the tricks we use to get animals to take their medicine. She posted pictures of the Red Ruffed Lemurs taking some meds.
The Ring Tailed Lemurs aren’t so easy! But I found a very easy mix of mashed lemur chow and banana that seems to mask their dewormer enough for them to eat it.
Here's the mashed chow
Add mashed banana
Add the dewormer
Mix it all together
Cross your fingers and hope they eat it all
Cassandra (in front) and Satyrus eating their dewormer mix
Lycus eating his dewormer mix
My dog had to take a liquid dewormer once. I mixed it with cooked mashed liver. It smelled awful but he loved it! I’ve learned a lot about how to enrich my dog’s life through the keeper blog!
now you can teach me how to give misty our dog a pill lol
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Happy 1.5 year anniversary to Kimberly being a keeper at the Museum! For regular blog readers, you’ve already got to know Kimberly quite well by reading her posts. She’s passionate about lemurs, animal training, and the natural world. She has a lot of cats at home. She works hard and loves being an animal keeper. Even through some rather difficult health issues in the recent past, she’s still pretty positive and cheery.
What you might not know about Kimberly is that she has her bachelors degree in biology from UNC Wilmington. She spent time at the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas and the Rio Grande Zoo in Albuquerque. She’s done an internship with arachnids so she doesn’t mind being around spiders. While in New Mexico, she spent most of her time doing animal programs and training hoof stock. She and a fellow keeper trained a hippo to open it’s mouth so its tooth could be trimmed (ask her to write about that please!).
We thankfully stole her away from the word of caring for children- some might say a much harder job than being an animal keeper. Getting rave reviews from the parent’s of the children she cared for was what sealed the deal to offer her a Keeper job.
Kimberly warming a lemur after Dr. Vanderford finished its physical.
She takes her job here very seriously- always thinking of the health and well being of the animals she works with and is not afraid to hold visitors in check for treating the critters poorly. I’m happy she’s been with us for one and half years and look forward to the next one and a half and many more.
While I still have a lot to learn about Kimberly, there’s one thing I want to know now: she told me she prefers to be called Kimberly, but others call her Kim. What do you think that is about?
I call her Kimberly too so maybe only people she thinks are cool can call her Kimberly?
Thanks Sherry for this spotlight. I do prefer being called Kimberly at work, it makes me feel more professional (no idea why) plus it’s much easier to hear over the radio than Kim. And as much as I’d like to take credit for the hippo training, that was all the work of the Senior Keeper, Catalina-she worked at the Rio Grande Zoo for 23 years when I was trained by her and was an amazing mentor!! I loved working in Hoofstock- super hard work but I didn’t train any hoofstock animals. Check out this post to see the animals I did train with- http://blogs.lifeandscience.org/keepers/2012/02/12/target-click/
thanks your for sharing
Kimberly is her name and I’m glad she likes what she was named her grandmother picked the name out
I do like my name Mom. Also Kim sounds too similiar to Kent, Ken, and Jim over the radio.
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This article is written by PhD student Jenna Pyle, who is studying with Drs. Michelle Sauther and Frank Cuozzo (Lemur Biology Project.). They are doing their research at the Beza Mahafaly Reserve in Madagascar. Really, it’s worth reading. (Click here).
A group of ring-tailed lemurs forage for food and bask in the sunlight at the Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve. (Photo/Michelle Sauther).
Thanks for sharing Jenna’s article here. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
My brother recommended I would possibly like this blog. He was totally right. This post actually made my day. You cann’t believe just how much time I had spent for this information! Thanks!
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From left to right: wolf exhibit, bear exhibit, farmyard exhibits, lemur exhibit.
Anyone who has been in the animal keeping profession knows that part of the job includes the unfortunate task of pulling trash out of the animal exhibits. On some level it is expected that a random object will occasionally be found in an animal’s enclosure, due to a visitor accidentally dropping something and not being able to recover it (please don’t try to retrieve the item yourself!). However, we have noticed the amount of trash in the exhibits increase significantly over the last couple of years.
By far, we find the most trash in the farmyard exhibits.
Keeper Katy focuses in the vet area of the animal department, so she is notified whenever anything is found in an exhibit so that we can put a “watch” on the animal for behavioral changes in case it ingested part of the item/food/trash. Since the keepers started finding items more frequently, Katy decided to start saving all the trash to see just how much was collected over the course of 2011.
The amount of trash in these pictures might astonish you, but what’s even more astonishing is that Katy didn’t start saving the items until the Spring of 2011. So there’s a good four months worth of trash not included in these pictures. On top of that, there were times that the keepers forgot to keep the items for Katy, so those weren’t added to the bags either. I know there were at least three occasions where I forgot to save the trash for Katy, and I threw it away after pulling it from the enclosure.
The contents in this picture are a prime example of why we don't allow balloons on grounds. The outcome could have been very bad if one of our bears had ingested the helium balloon you see in the bag on the right.
There are times when a visitor accidentally drops something in an exhibit and they find a museum staff member to let them know. This is the best thing to do because the staff member will radio the keepers, and it allows us to remove the article from the exhibit as soon as possible.
Above: Here’s a closer look at some of the items we found in the farmyard. The mangled Mountain Dew can you see to the right came from the donkey and goat yard, and clearly it had been chewed on and ripped up by one or all of them. Worrisome for the keepers!
Here’s my personal favorite, and it was found in Lightning the donkey’s stall one morning. Unfortunately it was mixed in with some of his hay and could have been ingested fairly easily. It’s a hair attachment with feathers, and Kent saved this one and has it hanging up above his desk.
It’s nice to see that when our visitors are eating chips and drinking soda, they are trying to be healthy about it. However, these items are not healthy for our animals, even if they are “baked” or “diet”!
Katy has already started collecting exhibit trash for 2012, so watch for the blog post in early 2013 to see what we collected over the course of this year.
It’s not just things being dropped in that are worrisome. Some of our animals will steal things from guests right off the railings or even from their hands! I rescued many applesauce coated toddler spoons from the donkey and goats last summer and the pigs have stolen plastic snack baggies right through the fencing. I like to ask guests to stand an arms’ length away from the fences if they have food or drinks, just to be safe.
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In my last lemur post you learned the differences between them and other primates. But what makes a lemur a lemur and what exactly is a tooth comb? Or a grooming claw? Or a reflecting tapetum?
Even though lemurs are endemic to Madagascar and the Comoros Islands they can be quite different amongst themselves. Lemurs come in all sizes from the 1 oz pygmy mouse lemur to the 15 lbs Indri and Diademed Sifaka lemurs.
Pygmy Mouse Lemur
Diademed Sifaka
Indri Sifaka
Depending on the species of lemur they can be either diurnal or nocturnal. Typically nocturnal species are on the smaller side and solitary whereas diurnal species are larger and live in groups.
Lemurs are arboreal- spending most of their time in the trees and large bushes as opposed to terrestrial- spending most of their time on the ground, with exceptions of course. The biggest exception is the ring tailed lemurs- who are mostly terrestrial and live in large groups which helps them stay protected from predators. Power in numbers! Here at the museum we have two exhibits- one showing arboreal red ruffed lemurs who are almost always sitting high on their branches and then the large yard for the more terrestrial ring tailed lemurs.
So what about the tooth comb——> it is a very unique grooming adaptation. The front teeth of their lower jaw forms a ‘comb’ which they use to groom themselves and others in their group.
Toothcomb
A grooming claw on the second digit of their foot is elongated and used for scratching.
Grooming claw
And the light reflecting layer behind the retina of the eye is called a tapetum lucidum which helps lemurs see in the dark.
Leap, hop, and jump- Lemurs have long tails that help them balance while jumping and hopping but did you know that long tails also help them communicate while traveling in groups. Ring tailed lemurs keep their tails held high in the air- like flags, while traveling, with the dominant female leading the troop. However these tails are not prehensile -meaning they can not hang by them like other primates.
Lemurs also communicate via scent, facial expressions, and with vocalizations. Check back soon to learn more about lemur communication.
I’m always reminded of Dr. Seuss when I see these creatures…
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Our Red Ruffed Lemurs are distinguishable by their tails.
But can you tell them apart by their faces alone?
Cynthia is our oldest lemur and our oldest mammal (not including humans) at the museum, 30 years old! Her tail is the shortest.
Her two daughters Jethys and Iris are both 19 years old, Iris has the medium length tail and Jethys tail is the longest.
But their faces are very similar!
Can you guess correctly???
Lemur #1
Lemur #2
Lemur #3
Jethys, Iris, Cynthia?
Sorry Katy- incorrect
Iris, Jethys, Cynthia
Not a clue when you don’t show the tails.
Please share how you can tell when ready.
I hope I’m right since I’m their trainer!
I’m gonna have to go with Sarah on this one. Iris, Jethys, Cynthia.
Sarah and Marilyn are correct- Iris, Jethys, Cynthia.
Our Red Ruffed Lemurs are very difficult to tell apart by their faces alone so this was definately a challenge. Cynthia’s picture shows her gray foot- that’s how Sarah guessed. And Jethys is a bit darker than the other two- I’ll have to show whole body pics soon that include their tails. Thanks for guessing.
To me, Iris has very wide set eyes compared to Jethys, Jethys has the darkest red coat, the most wrinkles on her rostrum and a thinner face than Iris, and Cynthia’s fur is the lightest of the bunch and looks dry and scruffy (plus, she has gray toes!). I don’t tend to have much trouble telling them apart anymore (I used to do “guess which lemur” quizzes when I was working in the Lemur house to help me learn who was who), but their tails are always a welcome addition.
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I like the Cynthia no hands approach.
Cynthia’s going head deep LOL