The lives of lemurs: 50 years of photos posted online
- Published
They're super cute and they're making their web debut! The lives of nearly 4,000 endangered primates at the Duke Lemur Centre in the US, have been collected over 50 years and transferred to an online database for everyone to enjoy. The images include information from different life stages - this set shows a lemur from birth (a) to old age (g).
Lemurs at the centre, like this baby aye-aye, are weighed throughout their lives. Researchers hope that sharing the data will help with caring for the animals in captivity and protecting them in the wild.
The primates at the centre include lemurs, lorises and galagos - all from the strepsirrhini family, a species older than monkeys and apes. This picture shows very young examples of (a) crowned lemur, (b) ring-tailed lemur, (c) red ruffed lemur, (d) blue-eyed black lemur, (e) pygmy loris, and (f) Coquerel's sifaka.
Among the lives recorded in the new database is that of this small little one called Jonas - at 29 years, he's the oldest captive dwarf lemur in history.
The blue-eyed black lemur (only the males turn black, at about eight weeks old) is critically endangered in the wild. This is one of only two breeding females in North America, both live at the Duke Lemur Centre.
Coquerel's sifaka lemurs can leap 10m in a single jump, helpfully demonstrated here by a female named Drusilla, with her baby Aemelia on board for the ride.
This baby aye-aye, born in November 2011, was christened Elphaba. This picture captured the moment that she first ventured away from her nest.
Crowned lemurs were recently given an endangered status. Shown here are two males, Horus (in the middle) and his father Mosi (closest to camera).
Finally, check out this tiny pair of twin pygmy slow loris lemurs from the centre. Slow lorises very often have twin babies. Too cute!