Freeman voices concerns about endangered lemurs in documentary

In ‘Island of Lemurs: Madagascar’, Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman tells the story of the oldest surviving primates, the lemurs.

Shot with IMAX 3D cameras, the film follows conservationist Dr. Patricia Wright as she studies Madagascar’s lemur population and attempts to protect the endangered primates from deforestation.

“We have an extraordinary animal called the Indri. That’s the largest of all the lemurs that are alive today and it is an incredible singer-like, operatic,” says lemur expert Dr. Patricia Wright.

“The Sifakas are what we would call the Dancing Lemurs. They’re the ones that… they can go on the ground and do the elegant dance, or they can be in the trees going from tree to tree… huge leaps, wonderful, wonderful animals!,” says Dr. Wright.

“All these lemurs have one thing in common – from the little one to the very largest one – they all have female dominance. The females are the leaders. The females are the ones that make the choices of where they go and what foods they eat and where they’re going to sit,” says Dr. Wright.

‘Island of Lemurs: Madagascar’ is open now in IMAX theatres across the United States.

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Madagascar: King Julien's followers facing near extinction

Northrup.org

Many of us have seen the famous animation "Madagascar", while King Julien wanders off with Alex and the team, plus a trio of penguins, we may not know what happened to King Julien's remaining lemuzens back in Madagascar but perhaps, they have been sighing. Though the animation is funny, reality may provoke a bitter sense of loss without happy endings.

Mitch Irwin, an anthropologist at Northern Illinois University said that "Since the 2009 political crisis, the situation on the ground has been grim for the Malagasy people, but also for the lemurs, especially in terms of habitat loss. If things don't turn around, lemur extinctions will start happening."

Because of the political commotion, donors all over the globe withdrew funding of Madagascar's environmental programs, where conservation laws were not even enforced.

The  authors of the article detailed in the Feb. 21 issue of the Journal Science, lemurs fulfill crucial roles in maintaining the island's forests, authors further wrote, "Their loss would likely trigger extinction cascades."

An emergency conservation plan for lemurs are being called for by researchers, where attempts of saving lemurs include a community-based, habitat management for protection, a promotion of Madagascar's ecotourism, and the presence of a researcher or a team of researchers in the wildlife area.

Read more on YahooNews.

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Lemurs in danger of extinction

The big-eyed primates from Madagascar are in serious danger of extinction.

The Bristol Zoo reports that 90 percent of the lemur species is in danger of extinction, mainly caused by human interference with their habitats in native Madagascar. There has also been an increase in poaching of the animals, as well as a steep loss in funding for environmental programs that protect lemurs.

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King Julien...and friends

On King Julien...devising a plan.

photo by: 

xMaritjee of deviantart - http://xmaritjee.deviantart.com/art/Funny-animals-112990353

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Madagascar’s Ring-Tailed Lemurs Regularly Sleep in Caves, Biologists Say

A new study published in the journal Madagascar Conservation and Development has shown the ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) are the world’s only primates that sleep in the same caves on a nightly basis.

Ring-tailed lemurs are found only in Madagascar. They are easily identified by their characteristic, black and white ringed tails, which can be twice as long as their bodies.

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Lemurs

Lemurs are typically mistaken to be monkeys, but this assumption doesn’t define them as such, in the sense that the lemurs are not descendants of ancient primates, even if they do bear certain similarities with them.

Found in the island of Madagascar, the 2005 animated hit Madagascar doesn’t miss on its Madagascar-based premise, a credit to the movie’s creators.

Telling the story of how a group of New York Zoo animals managed to find themselves in the island of Madagascar, the adventures of Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the Giraffe, and Gloria the hippo are the main focus in Madagascar, where the four encounter a group of merry lemurs who are simply out to live the “good island life”.

Though not exactly responsible for sparking interests on lemurs, the movie did manage to stoke the fires of interest in them, effectively putting lemurs on the map.

As creatures, all types of lemurs share a set of basal primal traits, characterized by tails and divergent digits found in their hands and feet. Highly social and very interactive, these characteristics have once made them popular as exotic pets, but their status as a pet is well guarded by officially sanctioned wildlife conservation agencies.

The fact that they were quite popular as pets has actually driven different organizations into officially monitoring and controlling lemur populations, giving focus on emphasis on how properly housed they are, how pet owners are in the capacity to provide them with their dietary staples, etc.

Though it is not generally illegal to keep lemurs as pets, there are certain considerations and restrictions involved in keeping them, something which someone who is entertaining the thought of getting a lemur should be well aware of.

Do you own a lemur? What did you have to do to legally keep it?

 Lemurs Video

 

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Lemurs

Although the movie Madagascar focuses on the exploits of escaped zoo animals Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippopotamus, and Melman the giraffe, the lemurs on the animated film often end up stealing the show. The movie tells the story of how the New York City zoo animals accidentally escape their homes and wind up in Madagascar. The animals struggle to adjust to their wilder environment, ending up in some truly funny moments on film.

Madagascar is famous the world over for its lemurs, primates that look like they’re more related to cats than they are to other more commonly known primates, like monkeys. Lemurs are endemic to the island of Madagascar and posses certain characteristics that are unique to them. For instance, the indri genus of lemur is known to sing like a while, while the sifaka is known to skip and hope across the sand.

The island of Madagascar is unique because it lacks the typical primate population found in most countries, instead having the older group of primates, lemurs, which belong to the sub-order Strepsirhini—it’s the same family that pottos, lorises and bushbabies belong to. It’s because of Madagascar’s isolation why the animals still live to this day.

For most people outside the scientific world, lemurs are generally categorized by their behavior during the time of the day. Nocturnal lemurs are usually smaller and shy of people while diurnal lemurs can  be active during any time of the year—they’re also the ones portrayed on the film Madagascar. Lemurs are incredibly vocal animals, known to make sounds ranging from grunts, chirps to wails very similar to a police siren or call of a humpback whale.

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