Hey, here are my answers to 8.4's questions!

What do they like to eat?

In the wild they mainly eat 4 different types of grasses and reeds. One of them, Phragmites reed, is very common and I’ve just planted this in one of our enclosure, I’ll tell you more about that later.

At Durrell we feed them pellets in the morning, either bamboo, willow or grass at lunch and some vegetables like cucumber and tomato in the evening. We do this because it’s very difficult to give animals in zoos exactly the same as what they eat in the wild. So we look at all the nutrients and vitamins and find similar things to feed, so all animals get exactly what they need.

What specific colours are they?

Apart from small differences, all gentle lemurs are brown. Some a bit more greyish, others more gold, but in fact they all look pretty much the same. Males tend to be a little bit larger than females, but they don’t differ in colour.

Can you keep them as a pet?

No. Well, unfortunately a lot of people want one as a pet and this is one of the reasons they are critically endangered. They are being stolen from their wild families to sell to people who think that they make good pets. You must keep in mind that, even though they look cute and cuddly, they aren’t really. They live in small family groups, so keeping one on its own in a cage at home would in my eyes be extremely cruel. This applies not only to gentle lemurs, but any primate. If you think you want a monkey as a pet, think again, would it make you happy to keep one on its own in a cage until you have time for it one or two hours a day? I don’t think so.

How many are pregnant?

I hope at least one of them! Remember Bala, the lemur I wrote about? We weigh the lemurs every month to be able to see if there might be any medical problems, or to see if they might be pregnant. Bala always weighs around 1.45kg, but last week she suddenly weighed 1.65! It is a small difference, but it could indicate a pregnancy. Unfortunately though.. the willow trees in her enclosure have started growing leaves, so I actually think she has just been eating all day and gaining weight because of that! Fingers crossed though.. you never know!
Our other 2 females, Bandro and Vitsy, are simply too old to breed. They are both 20 years old now and they can just live the rest of their lives with us in peace and quiet.

Can they jump high and are they strong as they look like monkeys?

Well, if you have a good look at them, you can see that their hind legs are longer than their arms. They use these to leap between the reeds, so yes, they are very strong. They can jump far, but not high. I’ll post some more later about some cool features like their toes. It’s easier to show you with help of a photo why they can’t jump high. What is extremely strong in gentle lemurs though, are their jaws. Because of the tough vegetation they eat, they need to have strong jaws to chew the plant material. This also means that if you get bitten, it really really hurts!

Do they have any special skills?

Yes, they can swim! As far as I know, no other species of lemur can swim, but gentle lemurs have been observed in the water. I’ve never seen one swimming though, even though two of our enclosures have water in them.

How do they play?

When gentle lemurs play, it looks like they are wrestling. They’ll chase each other and then jump on top of the other and play bite and grab each other’s heads, it looks really funny!

How many are there left?

This question is really hard to answer, because nobody really knows at the moment. The last, most thorough counting was done in 2013, where my Durrell colleagues in Madagascar estimated that there are around 2500 gentle lemurs left.

You probably think that counting is pretty straightforward right? Unfortunately it’s not! You must keep in mind that there are several factors that makes it difficult to count animals like gentle lemurs:

-They live in dense reed beds. The only way to come close is to go out in a canoe, but you can then only count the ones you can see or hear close by.

-In the dry season, the water level is so low that the canoes can’t get close enough to the reed beds to see any lemurs at all.

-They are small and brown. That means there could be one hiding right in front of you, but if it doesn’t move or make a noise, you might miss it.

Field conservationists have methods to make good estimates of the population size. This has to do with the number of lemurs they count in a specific area and then, by using a mathematic formula, they can predict the total population size.

Keep reading my blogs, because I’ll write about an exciting new method that Durrell is planning to use to make counting them much easier!

Can you breed them with non gentle lemurs?

Yes, I suppose you can breed them with other species of ‘bamboo lemur’ to which they are closely related, like the golden bamboo lemur or the grey bamboo lemur. However, I see no reason to do this. It’s a little bit like breeding tigers with lions to ‘create’ a new species. This is very bad practice and people who do this usually want to make a lot of money over the back of the animal. Those animals do not have a place in the wild, as people made them, and they fill up spaces in zoos that could be used for animals that could be released back into the wild.
I think it’s better to keep good track of family relations and genetics, so inbreeding can be prevented (see the next blog!)