Want to know more about lemurs and Madagascar?

Duke Lemur Center is unique. This facility not only houses the largest collection of lemurs outside of Madagascar, it offers unparalleled opportunities for research, and it serves as an interactive classroom and a resource for Duke University.



Our unique Center studies animals which are even more unique and come from one of the most singular places in the world. Our director, Dr. Anne Yoder is featured in the linked video. She discusses the history and importance of Madagascar, lemurs, and the work done at Duke Lemur Center.

Lemurs here and in Madagascar may live oceans apart, but they are tied by a common heritage, shared science, and common goals for conservation.

Duke Lemur Center draws researchers from across the nation and around the world

What’s with all the Canadians? Duke Lemur Center seems to have been inundated by researchers from the Great White North this summer. And it can’t just be the weather, as I hear tell it’s quite pleasant there this time of year. Let’s see if I can even name them all: Dr. Kathleen Muldoon, a Canadian researcher based at Dartmouth University, was here studying energy expenditure in our free-ranging ring-tailed lemurs. Dr. Tracy Kivell, a Canadian who has been a postdoctoral researcher here in Duke’s Evolutionary Anthropology department, has been intensively collecting data on aye-aye locomotion all summer before she heads off to a new research position at the Max Plank Institute in Germany. Drs. Sergio and Vivian Pellis came down from the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada (though I should mention that they are Canadians from Australia) to study rough and tumble play in our infants. One of our long-term Canadian researchers, Dr. Marylene Boulet, has been a post doc at Duke studying olfactory communication in ring-tailed lemurs, but she returned to Canada late in the summer to take a research position there. Even the Canadian Discovery Channel was here to film some aye-aye locomotion research for a segment on the show “The Daily Planet”.

And Canada isn’t the only far-off land from which our researchers hail. Masters student Lucy Todd from Roehampton University in London (though she is actually Scottish) is also here recording Sifaka vocalizations, and Dr. Lap Ki Chan made the trip from Hong Kong to study how lorises reach from one substrate to another as they travel.

While we are very proud of our international appeal, let’s not forget our visiting researchers from the good old US of A! Dr. Jandy Hanna from West Virginia School of Medicine has spent much of the summer here studying lemur locomotion, Tess McLoud, a student at Dartmouth, came down to observe ring-tailed lemur infant-male interactions, and Peter Flynn, a high school student from New York who is part of the Intel Mentorship Program, spent all of July collecting data on ring-tailed lemur foraging. Gini Dawkins from Hunter College in New York recently paid a visit to document play behavior in sifakas and red-ruffed lemurs, and Dr. Matt O’Neill, from SUNY Stonybrook, made two trips to the DLC this summer, collaborating with both Dr. Hanna and Dr. Muldoon.

Dr. Roshna Wunderlich, a frequent year-round visitor from James Madison University, made several appearances over the summer to continue her study of sifaka locomotion, Dr. Chris Mercer from Northwestern University will make his third annual visit to do alarm call playback experiments later this month, and Dr. David Hollar, from UNC, will be making the long journey from Chapel Hill to observe and document how ring-tailed lemur groups interact and how they use their environments.

Summertime for some means more downtime, and this is particularly true for students and academics, who tend to have reduced class and teaching responsibilities. Many researchers take this opportunity to travel to the field or to other institutions (such as the DLC) to gather data not accessible to them at home. Which is all well and good but leaves me now, at the end of the summer, in desperate need of a vacation. Perhaps I’ll go to Canada.

Duke Lemur Center - changing lives

Kizzy is a Black & white ruffed lemur and a stellar mom. She gave birth to triplets recently, but life is hard and one infant was still born. One was fit and healthy. One was clearly a runt. In the wild, the runt would have been doomed - not because Kizzy didn't mother properly. She worked hard to care for her infants. She held and groomed both babies and encouraged them to nurse. The runt would have been doomed because it was so weak. Kizzy would groom the tiny infant and try to guide it (as much as a lemur mothers can) towards her nipple to suckle. But the infant seemed to be too small and weak to locate the nipple and latch on to nurse, and it would tumble to the floor of Kizzy's nestbox looking pitiful and lost.



That is where the staff at the Duke Lemur Center stepped in - changing the course of the little runt's life. Two of the world's premier lemur veterinarians, Drs. Cathy Williams and Bobby Schoppler, both work at the Lemur Center. They laid out a course of care for the tiny black & white ruffed lemur. Primate technicians supplemented Kizzy's attempts to feed the infant. The technicians fed the baby around the clock (every two to three hours), returning the infant to Kizzy's care after every feeding, and helped the vets monitor progress. Hour after hour, day after day, Kizzy and a team of humans worked to change the outcome for a little lemur - and it worked!

The runt gradually began to hold its own, then to gain both weight and strength. The DLC staff could cut back on supplemental feeding, and Kizzy could continue what came naturally to her - to care for her babies. The folks at Duke Lemur Center changed the course of history for one little lemur.

It works the other way around also. These endangered species, who are incredible biological treasures,and who also happen to be irresistably engaging change the lives of many who encounter them. That is what happened for Dr. Anne Yoder, Director of the Duke Lemur Center. Here is Dr. Yoder's story.