[Music]
what we have here is our red ruffed
lemur troop it's two males and two
females and we are fortunate enough that
we had one of our females have babies
well one baby Perseids we're very happy
about this and we're grateful for it
simply because they have a high
mortality rate 65% of their offspring
usually perishes they are born not
completely developed fairly premature so
they highly rely on their mother do you
have a little baby boy born May 6
he's currently with Mama and she's a
wonderful mom I hope you were there for
several months now what's really
fascinating to him why we even are so
excited about this is that red ruffed
lemurs there's less than a thousand left
in the wild so they're native to
Madagascar up in the northern region
actually and that's why they have their
big fluffy fur to keep them nice and
warm from all the high wind now you'll
notice these guys they are primates but
they're not monkeys their long tail is
about twice the size um however this is
really for balance so they'll be all
over the place as you can see there all
sorts of curious about the equipment
right there it's something new so we do
do enrichment for them every single day
and as you can see they love it they
love having something new to work out
red ruffed lemurs there's over 200
species of lemurs but these the species
in particular and they primarily eat
fruit so their fruit divorce and this is
a mr. Ringo here and he's loving
the banana so we also do lemur
encounters here so guests can have the
privilege of being able to touch these
guys and just see how amazing they are
they're very social so they do
coordinate with a troop or family and
they live anywhere from three to thirty
lemurs within that true they have crazy
vocalizations the red ruffed lemurs
mainly because they live up in the
treetops in the rainforest and they need
to be able to communicate with each
other for long different distances out
of all the lemur species these guys are
bilingual which is fascinating so they
can understand all other lemur species
but those lemur species can't
necessarily understand that we do offer
lemur encounters here at the San Antonio
aquarium I've read ref lemur encounters
are currently on hold until babies up
and going and mom doesn't feel so
necessarily protective over him however
we still have a ring-tailed lemur
encounters and those are wide open it's
for tokens to go in and you basically
sit on a bench our keepers then target
the lemurs down onto your lap where you
can then gently touch them with two
fingers right on the back it's a pretty
cool experience they jump all over you
now with our red ruffed lemurs these
guys are more of a laid-back and they
just like the cuddles per se these guys
are in definitely need of protection
they're critically endangered and due to
habitat destruction illegal cut trade as
well as loss of food so what can we do
well we can definitely be a part of
projects such as the Duke lemur society
as well as choosing to not participate
in legal pet trade as well as simply
reducing reusing and recycling so if
no need to take away their homes then
they'll have plenty of homes to thrive
in interesting facts about all that
they're bilingual so they understand
different species of lemur I didn't know
they had different lean languages right
different dialects maybe we were we
unseal email why are they fancy to Mike
on the San Antonio aquarium just head to
our website as se live.com and click on
the as seen on si live tab kind of my
standby ax