Posts Tagged ‘Lycus’

by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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10 mins with the Ring Tailed Lemurs

May 10th, 2013

After lunch everyday we head out to our respective areas and do afternoon checks. The ring-tailed lemurs have been enjoying their outside exhibit. I snapped some pictures during check recently. Sometimes all they do is sleep and sometimes they are climbing trees this is what they were doing on this particular day…

All 3 ring-tailed lemurs resting on top of their climbing structure

Still hanging out on the structure, just further apart

Lycus stands up…

for a nice stretch!

And sits back in a buddha pose for some nice sunbathing

Satyrus and Lycus, checking out some browse

Here you can see Satyrus in the back sunbathing while Lycus lays in the front

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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Lemur Training Update

March 7th, 2013

 

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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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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This week in ETW

October 13th, 2012

Recently I added a hammock to the Ring Tailed Lemur indoor stalls. I have seen both Cassandra and Satyrus snuggled up together in it but when I reached for my camera they jumped up. I got lucky the other day and snapped a pic of Lycus lounging in it.

I was working for Keeper Jill this past Saturday (who was attending the AAZK conference) and wanted do some fun enrichment for the Bears and for me to watch. So I used a bunch of empty boxes and filled them with their p.m. food and some extra treats. It wasn’t very eventful but it was interesting to see how each of them accessed their boxes differently. Gus just shoved his head right in! Mimi carefully pulled back the tabs on the boxes. Virginia pushed all the tabs into the box and Yona had her box on it’s side. 

Front to back: Gus, Mimi, Yona

Virginia

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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Photos from Explore the Wild

September 24th, 2012

Lemurs-

Cynthia sleeping- can you believe she finds this position comfortable???

Cassandra having a bite to eat

Lycus sitting between the shift door

The beginning of station stump training

Ring Tail!

 

 Bears-  

Two bears during a keeper talk. Keeper Talks are in Explore the Wild everyday at 2pm!

Gus laid out on a hot day, Yona is curled up close by

I love seeing Mimi’s cute face each morning

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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Lemurs in Crates

August 11th, 2012

I’ve posted about lemur training before and wanted to give an update.

Click here and here to refresh your memory.

Ring Tailed Lemur physicals are in September! That’s so soon. But we are making progress. Lycus actually had to be seen earlier than expected. I noticed a change in his eyes, a white cloudiness. We had a few days until Dr. Vanderford would be able to see Lycus so I began using the ophthalmoscope (a lighted instrument that is used to exam the inside of the eye) during training. Luckily, they are curious little animals so it didn’t take long for me to be able to hold up the ophthalmoscope and shine the light into their eyes.

Demonstrating the ophthalmoscope on a stuffed lemur

To exam Lycus’ eyes Dr.V came down to the lemur building, we actually have shelves on each stall door. I called Lycus up to the shelf and she checked out his eyes while I supplied the treats. She also checked out Cassandra’s eyes, for comparison. Dr. V thought it was best to have Dr. English come check out Lycus.

For Dr. English‘s visit we had to bring Lycus down to the vet room, which is in the main building. That meant being crated and a ride in the vehicle. Dr. English confirmed that Lycus, who is 27, has old age related cataracts. Although it was earlier than expected, Lycus did very well. In fact, two days later I tried crate training (while crossing my fingers) and he went right in without issue. Him and I have been taking short rides in the vehicle as part of training. He’s doing great!

Lycus on one of our rides around campus

Julie Grimes and I plan on bringing Lycus to the vet room and using training to call him out of his crate. With hopes that he doesn’t bounce around the room and that he goes back into his crate on his own.

So that’s were we are at. I feel like Cassandra is ready to take some short rides in the vehicle and Satyrus has been doing great as well.

Lycus relaxing in his side-yard doorway

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  1. How exciting! Well done Kimberly. Will you treat Lycus’ cataracts?

    Posted by leslie
    9:13 am on August 13, 2012
  2. Keeper Comment :

    Thanks Leslie! Dr English isn’t overly concerned with them, we’ll just monitor them for now.

    Posted by Kimberly Lawson
    1:14 pm on August 13, 2012

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.
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What did you say?

September 27th, 2011

Lycus Lemur

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  1. Keeper Comment :

    Lycus is so cute!

    Posted by Marilyn Johnson
    8:19 am on September 27, 2011

  2. lycus ist wirklich niedlich, ist es ein er oder eine sie? und wie heißt das suesse ding richtig? mich würde mal interessieren auf weclher safari bzw wo man den kleinen racker in der freien wildbahn finden könnte? viele gruesse aus germany ;) bin gespannt auf deine antworten. ashton

    Posted by ashton
    9:51 pm on September 28, 2011

  3. …from Lycus’s look I don’t think he speaks or understands German!

    Posted by DJ
    8:59 pm on September 29, 2011

  5. The Museum of Life and Science was given a Patron Donation in the name of DJ’s Mom last year!
    …please feel free to match it.

    Posted by DJ
    8:42 pm on September 30, 2011
  6. Keeper Comment :

    Hi Ashton,
    Lycus is a 26 year old male, he lives with an unrelated female Cassandra and her adult son Satyrus. Lycus is a Ring Tailed Lemur which can only be found in the wild in Madagascar. We are lucky enough to have 6 lemurs here, 3 ring tailed and 3 red ruffed lemurs. Very close to us is the world’s leading Lemur Research Center at Duke. Thanks for your comment and keep checking out our blog for more fun with lemurs :)

    Posted by Kimberly Lawson
    10:28 am on October 2, 2011
  7. Keeper Comment :

    He may not but we have a couple staff members who can

    Posted by Kimberly Lawson
    10:28 am on October 2, 2011

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by , Keeper
I have worked in the animal department for about 5 years. Some of my favorites include ferrets and birds. I am also known for my weird obsession with things relevant to the 80's.
I work Tuesday-Saturday and can be seen training our pigs on occasion.
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Happy Birthday!

March 31st, 2011

Normally, we do not post blogs for an animals birthday, there would be way too many entries and too many cakes to bake. However, this month is special for one of our Red Ruffed lemurs,Cynthia. This promsimian turns the big 3-0! That’s right, 30 years old! Another primate turning 30 around here is Keeper Kim. Normal lifespan for a lemur in captivity is early 20s.  Another older lemur we have is Lycus, who was born in 1985.

We have other animals which are older but we cant prove it because we do not have the birth records, we have an arrival date but not a birth date. Misha, the red tailed hawk arrived in 1993, we know he was at least 2 years old because he had lost his juvenile feathers. Two of our barred owls arrived in 1989 and were adults as well.These birds can live into their 30s. When it comes to snakes, we have a rattle snake that arrived in 1990 at the age of 8. We cant forget about our oldest bear  Ursula , who just turned 20 this year and some of the turtles we don’t even have an arrival date on.

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  1. Happy belated Birthday, Cynthia!

    Posted by Åsa
    9:03 pm on April 5, 2011

  2. how do you no when your red ear turtle is a boy or girl

    Posted by marla
    9:31 pm on April 23, 2011

  3. Hey there Marla!
    Let me answer this one for Jill if that’s okay. Once your turtles are a few inches long, look at their front fingernails. If you have a male, the claws will be super long, like Wolverine from X-Men :) If you have a girl, they will be shorter and normal ratio length. The male uses his long claws to attract the females during the mating season when they are a little bit older.
    You can also tell a little by ther length of the tails, with males having a longer tail than the females, but this a little harder to tell by unless you’re used to looking at alot of turtles. :) The claw method is the easiest way.
    Good luck with it and have a good one!

    Posted by Mikey
    5:32 pm on April 30, 2011

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by , Director
I've been at the Museum sooooo long - longer than many of our interns have been alive. I do a little bit of everything as part of my job: care for the animals, work with the keepers and other staff, spend time with guests. Lucky me!
I spend a lot of time behind-the-scenes, or here after hours, but if you really want to see me, you'll have to sign-up for a behind-the-scenes program.
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Lemur Physicals

October 27th, 2010

Last week Dr. Vanderford was here for vet rounds. The ring tailed lemurs got their physicals. Cassandra had her brush with death over the summer, and is doing AMAZINGLY WELL- you would never know there were any issues! A couple photos below from Dr. Vanderford cleaning Casandra’s teeth. All three ring tailed lemurs were checked out and are doing well. It’s no huge surprise that Lycus, our oldest and 25 year old ring tailed lemur, has some teeth worn down. The red ruffed lemurs received their annual physical last month and the three of them are doing well too.

Dr. Vanderford and Cassandra

x

Cassandra has her teeth cleaned

x

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by , Keeper
I have been working at the museum since 2003, and I feel fortunate to have a job where I can start my day with amazing animals surrounding me. I enjoy camping, hiking and rock climbing in my spare time when the weather is nice.
I work Tuesday through Saturday and spend a lot of time behind the scenes, but you might find me at a public program or feeding the farmyard animals in the afternoon.
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Creature Feature: Lycus the ring-tailed lemur

September 10th, 2008

Lycus is one of the oldest lemurs we have, and is a favorite among some of the keepers. He was born at the Duke Lemur Center in March of 1985, and came to live at the museum in October of 2005. He lives with two other ring-tailed lemurs, Cassandra and her son Satyrus. It is hard to tell the three apart, so they all have different colored bands on their tracking collars. But Lycus is the easiest to tell apart because he has a distinctive bump on his chin and a white patch of fur on his left shoulder.

Although Lycus is a pretty old lemur, he is still very active and gets around just as well as the others. The only age-related difference that he has is that his teeth are more worn down. Because of this, we crush the lemur’s morning chow into smaller pieces and make it softer by adding apple juice and mashed banana to it. This method helps the older lemurs a lot when eating the chow, which is important because they need the nutrients it contains. In the evening, the lemurs are fed their fruits and vegetables. These consist of banana, apple, sweet potato, carrot, broccoli, greens, papaya, mango, grapes, berries, melon, green beans, corn, pear, peach and plum. What a variety! We give different foods on different days so that their meals can be enriching. They also get other foods such as raisins and pineapple with their enrichment items. Of course, like all the lemurs, Lycus loves the bananas and other fruits more than the vegetables, but they do also enjoy cooked sweet potato.
During the warmer parts of the year, you can find the ring-tailed lemurs in the outdoor exhibit. They are brought indoors at night because it is safer, but they still have access to outside holding yards if they want to go out during the night. When the colder months come, though, they cannot stay outside. Their bodies cannot withstand the cold temperatures and they could get frostbite in their toes or tails. So they stay in the warm lemur house or go on exhibit in the indoor viewing area when the temperatures drop. For the keepers working outside in the winter, it’s always a relief to arrive at the warm lemur building to clean!

You can learn a lot more about lemurs by visiting this website, or you can take a tour at the Duke Lemur Center and see a wide array of lemur species there!

It is difficult to see the bump on Lycus’ chin in these pictures, but notice the patch of white fur on his left shoulder in the second picture. He is picking up some morning chow to eat.

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  1. Lycus is the best!!! (2nd to Nanette)

    Posted by Katy
    4:12 pm on September 12, 2008

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