Hi again, here are my answers to the latest questions!
I've put them all together, so if you asked me a question, please scroll down.

@Benito: Thank you so much for your nice comment and your questions! I really liked coming to your school and doing the talk, although I wished I had such a cool presentation like Dan ;-)



How many babies are in each birth and how long is pregnancy?

In general gentle lemurs give birth to 1-2 offspring after a pregnancy of about 154 days.


What is the longest recorded tail of a lemur?

That’s an interesting question and I must admit that I don’t really know the answer! The bigger lemur species like ruffed lemurs are most likely to have the longest tails. ‘The bigger the lemur, the longer the tail’ isn’t always the case though. Remember the Indri, the biggest lemur? They actually have really short tails.

What is your second favourite lemur?

Oooh difficult! I like them all actually! If I really had to make a choice, I'd say aye ayes. Just because it's so difficult to see them in the wild. I asked people in Madagascar and even forest guides who are out there every day only see them once or twice in their lives!
I also find it really special that I am working with the aye ayes that were brought to Jersey by Gerald Durrell. He really is my hero and to think that he and I both looked those same animals in the eye is very special to me.

What noise do they make?

Gentle lemurs are not very loud animals, but they do have quite a few noises, or vocalizations. The most common one is the 'popping' noise, they make this when they see keepers or other people they know (the vets!). Some of our gentles are very quiet other than that, but Bandro, the old female, always makes a really funny noise when I walk past, it sounds a little bit like a crying baby!: 'Weeeeh!'.  

After 10 years what is your prediction for gentle lemur numbers?

This is a difficult question, because the threats these animals are facing are enormous. Durrell has been working in Madagascar for over 25 years and has made a big difference in Lake Alaotra by protecting a large area, but we are only a small organisation with limited resources. I think it is important to keep preventing the gentle lemurs from becoming extinct, but the pressures are still increasing. I think their future  is perilous and I think the number of gentle lemurs will continue to go down due to all the threats, but we will continue fighting for them.

Do Ring tail lemurs and gentle lemurs fight?

In the wild, ring-tailed and Alaotran gentle lemurs do not live in the same area, so they will never meet. Some zoos do keep gentle lemurs with other species and this goes really well in general. With all animals that live together in zoos, it’s important to slowly introduce them to each other. When you do this carefully, there should be no fighting. We do this by first giving them visual access to each other for a while, for example through fine mesh. This way they get used to each others presence. When everything is calm, we then given them tactile access, whereby they can touch each other, but not actually go in the same room. When this goes well we remove the mesh between the rooms watch the animals until we are certain that they have accepted each other. We might actually try mixing gentle and ring-tailed lemurs at some point!

How many people do you work with?

Durrell’s mammal team has 14 keepers. Some of us mainly work with one or two species, like the gorilla keeper, and others (like me) work with many more species, like all the tamarins, the lemurs and the fruit bats. I also work with the macaques, mongoose, bears, coatis and howler monkeys, so every day is different!

How many hours a day do you spend with the Gentle Lemurs?

The gentle lemurs are on our ‘tamarins, bats and lemurs’ section. We usually work with about 4 keepers and 2 students on this section. The section is divided into different  mini-sections, so you do something different every day. Four of our gentle lemurs are in the ‘Kirindy’ area and the other four are in the ‘Lemur lake’ area. This morning for example, I did the 'Lemur lake' area, which has the free ranging tamarins, the fruit bats, 7 ring-tailed lemurs, 2 black and white ruffed lemurs, two red-ruffed lemurs and 4 gentle lemurs, quite a busy morning!

We go round in the mornings to check all the animals, to feed them and to clean the enclosures. Then at lunch, one keeper goes round all the lemurs and feeds them. For gentle lemurs we need to collect forage every day. In spring and summer this is ease, because there’s enough fresh willow and bamboo. In winter it’s a bit harder, because the willow trees have no leaves and the bamboo gets all old. Then at the end of the day, we all go to the different areas again, to give the animals their dinner and do a last round of cleaning if necessary. In between all this keepers do a lot of different jobs, from DIY projects to analysing animal diets!

Do the gentle lemurs have specific diets?

Yes, they do. Very specific diets even! All animals do actually, so that's why I always get really sad when I see people feeding animals in zoos. We know exactly what they need and they definitely get enough. If they eat human food, they could get really ill or worse.

I’m going to write about what we feed the gentle lemurs in my next blog, so please keep reading!

How many times did you go to Madagascar?
I went to Madagascar for the first time in November last year. I’ve seen 16 species of lemur in the wild and it was amazing to see them, so I’d definitely like to go back!  

How many lemurs have I worked with?
Well, during my studies I volunteered and did internships at a lot of different places, but never with lemurs! So this is the first 'lemur' job and so I have only worked with the six we have at Durrell.