Discover Lemur Island at the Philadelphia Zoo. Watch as exotic black-and-white ruffed lemurs experience life on their new island located in the middle of Bird Lake. The lemurs are learning all about their new home as they climb, leap and explore the new habitat created especially for them. Visitors can view Lemur Island near the main path at Lemur Lookout or get a unique view by swan boat. 

Lemur Island is home to Huey, Dewey, Casey and Cleo, all siblings born at the Zoo in 2006 and 2007. “It’s exciting to see the lemurs explore to the tops of the trees and the edges of the shoreline,” said Desiree Haneman, the lemur keeper. “It’s a great opportunity for them to discover new surroundings. Just as exciting is watching the visitors experience the lemurs in a whole new way.” Desiree and the primate keeper team have been working for months to prepare for this dynamic new exhibit.

At the Rainforest Adventure Maze, located at the entrance to the Swan Boats, guests can learn all about black-and- white ruffed lemurs and their native environment, the island of Madagascar. Children can mimic the Zoo’s lemurs as they test their jumping skills inside the maze and learn about the dangers this spectacular species faces in the wild, such as habitat loss and hunting.

The Zoo is a member of the Madagascar Fauna Group (MFG), a group of North American and European zoos that funds and carries out conservation projects in Madagascar, helping to preserve lemurs and other wildlife unique to the island. One of the successes of our partnership with the MFG was the release of ruffed lemurs born in U.S. zoos back into the wild at the Betampona Reserve.  The Philadelphia Zoo also participates in the Ruffed Lemur Species Survival Plan, a program of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, through which endangered species are managed to maintain genetically and demographically healthy zoo populations.  More information about lemurs below.
 

Ruffed lemurs are among the largest of living lemur species, although there were larger lemurs, some nearly the size of a female gorilla, when humans first arrived on Madagascar about 2000 years ago. Ruffed lemurs themselves are now endangered, largely due to loss of their rainforest habitat on the east coast of Madagascar.

Ruffed lemurs have one of the loudest calls in the animal world. The call might be described as a roar and can be heard from a long distance. This call probably plays a territorial function, but also seems to be used when the lemurs are alarmed by something. Ruffed lemurs are the most frugivorous of all lemurs, eating mostly fruits, but also eat leaves, seeds and nectars. Female ruffed lemurs give birth once a year, to a litter of usually one to three infants. The babies are born after a gestation period of about three months. Unlike most lemurs and other primates, the mother will leave her babies in a safe place, such as a nest, the fork of a tree or even inside a plant, rather than carrying them with her as she moves about. The infants are not able to cling to the mother when they are young, so she picks the infants up in her mouth if she does need to move them from one place to another, like a dog might carry a puppy.

Lemurs, of which there are more than 50 species, are among the many unusual species unique to the island of Madagascar, which is off the east coast of Africa and is the Earth’s fourth largest island. In addition to six different kinds of lemurs, among them the ruffed lemurs, a baby Coquerel’s sifaka born in February and the endangered blue-eyed lemur, Zoo visitors can see the Malagasy giant jumping rat, day geckos and several other reptiles native to Madagascar.