[Bindi] G’day, guys.
[Chandler] Hey, guys.
[Bindi] We wanted to introduce you to some of our cutest members
of the Australia Zoo family, the gorgeous ringtail lemurs.
Now, we are currently on Bindi's Island, feels weird me saying Bindi’s Island
My family named it after me because of all of our jungle girl filming,
which was a lot of fun, many years ago.
Dad wanted to plan this spectacular island in the middle of Australia Zoo
so people could come and experience lemurs like you do in Madagascar,
watching them free roam.
They get to enjoy spectacular grounds, lush trees,
amazing spots to climb all over.
And our guests to Australia Zoo get to experience
these little guys in such a unique way.
They have all the personality in the world.
They’re so much fun to be around.
We feel very lucky that all of our guests get to experience the lemurs and learn
more about them because they are having a really, really hard time in the wild.
My dad actually got to experience lemurs in the wild of Madagascar.
Check out the footage. It is amazing!
[Steve] The word lemur means
spirit of the dead.
And it's because during the night, the nocturnal species
growl and call, their vocalizations sound pretty eerie.
I don't think you could call a sifaka spirit of the dead.
Have a look at that for a face.
[Chandler] Now, what's really interesting is they also have that beautiful ring tail
that almost looks like a pipe cleaner.
[Bindi] Hi [Chandler] Hey, buddy.
[Chandler] They'll use that to communicate.
It's also kind of like a flag where they can get scent all over it,
smell it up, and they can indicate how they're feeling to other lemurs.
Now, if you look really closely, they have hands just like humans.
They have fingernails, they have fingerprints.
It looks just like human hands.
And just down from their hand there, they have this little claw
that comes out and that helps them scent mark trees to mark their territory.
And they're really interesting animals, too.
They're actually critically endangered out in the wild, which is very sad
because they live on an island and are rapidly losing habitat.
Isolated from the rest of the world and isolated from each other.
[Steve] The Madagascan lemurs have evolved into a whole stack of different species.
If you can imagine, thousands of years ago
they used to be over 40 different species.
And then around about 2000 years ago,
humans came here and they hunted them.
They destroyed the land and they pushed a lot of them to extinction.
And there’s only around about 28 species left.
If you can imagine, there used to be a lemur that grew the size of a gorilla.
[Chandler] So here at Australia Zoo, we have a very successful breeding program
that our Africa team manages and it's helping ensure that
there's ringtail lemurs on the planet for generations to come.
Now, here on Bindi Island as well, you get the fully immersive experience
of getting to live alongside these beautiful ring tailed lemurs.
Now what's really interesting about them,
is that they have their own social structure,
they live in troupes, and they actually have a leader,
almost like an alpha male, who manages everyone.
And then it goes on down the social ladder after that
big top dog.
[Steve] Hi
the Ring-tailed lemurs have got a real matriarchal system.
So you can see these two females here with their babies.
They call the shots.
In fact, this one that's closest to me, she is the matriarch.
She is the alpha female.
She's coming over here, checking me out
They've got an incredible sense of smell,
and when you get this close, you can see their shiny nose, it's wet.
So that moist nose means they've got a really good sense of smell.
[Bindi] After experiencing them in Madagascar,
He really said, I want people at Australia zoo
to fall in love with the animals and the best way to do that,
is to be able to experience them, one on one.
So he wanted to build a Madagascar
amazing island himself and that's what we have here at Australia Zoo
and it's a blessing to get to share them with you. Yay!