My zoo animal encounters: Red Ruffed Lemurs

As I've briefly mentioned in another post, I volunteer at my local zoo part time. During my time there (about two months) I've worked with a range of animals including big cats, zebra, giraffes and birds. I'm going to talk about my favourite animals that I've encountered as the weeks go by, including the maned wolves who I absolutely love! This post as you can probably tell by the title is about red ruffed lemurs, who I get to work quite closely with. The information in these posts is purely facts gleaned from my time at the zoo.

They love sunning themselves while posing!

Red ruffed lemurs are much larger than the more commonly known ring tailed lemurs, more or less twice the size. They originate from northern Madagascar whereas the ring tailed lemurs come from southern Madagascar, this and the fact that most Lemur species don't mix explains why the red ruffs often see the ring tails off in our mixed enclosure! They are endangered in the wild.

Red ruffed lemurs have thick fur that is a beautiful russet colour along the back which can appear bleached in some individuals as in the second picture above. This is actually very useful as it helps to distinguish one lemur from the next! As you can see from the pictures they have black fur on their tails and undersides. The skin of their feet and snouts looks like the finest quality softest leather you can imagine. Some also have markings such as a white ring around the base of the tail.

Their long tails are simply for balance, and are not prehensile as most people presume. Some individuals have extremely large canines, though most have fangs no larger than would be expected and can normally just be seen protruding from the top lip. Despite their ferocious looking teeth they primarily eat fruit and foliage, bamboo being a favourite and grapes are a special treat.

They can be expected to live for around 20-25 years in captivity, as opposed to only 15-20 years in the wild.

They can have litters of between 1-4 young, twins are quite common although we have triplets at the zoo who are now 7 years old.

Red ruffed lemurs are probably the noisiest lemurs! People are often scared witless when they make their warning/alarm call and remark that they thought it was a recording! Visitors often mistakenly think that they're having a fight but as I said it's a sort of warning call, started by one lemur to notify the others of a threat and it is passed along until they're all screeching together!

I've also witnessed them making a sort of chucking noise whilst grooming each other and I'm guessing that this is a kind of lemur chatter for showing affection or possibly mild irritation if one of them didn't want to be groomed.
Their back feet are specially adapted for life amongst the tress and look rather like our hands would if we stuck our fingers together and the used them as one digit along with our thumb. This means that they can not only grip the branches with their hands but with their feet too! Not only do they have excellent feet for gripping and a long tail for balance but they can also leap like nobody's business! Seeing them chase off the ring tails is an great way to really begin to appreciate just how skilled they are. They can change direction and leap several feet in the air in the blink of an eye with no hesitation whatsoever, always landing on target whether it be a fence post or platform!

This is about all the info I have on them so far, I'll be sure to add more as I learn and I'll be writing about my other favourite animals too!

My gorgeous pets.

My animals are really important to me, so I'm going to tell you a little bit about them. We have three ferrets, two boys and a girl. Despite what people think, ferrets aren't vicious, overly smelly or rodents! They are actually carnivorous and would rather eat a rodent than play with it...They are highly intelligent, playful, lovable creatures that crave companionship from other ferrets and their humans, and they can live for up to 10 years. They are unique little rascals with their own individual personalities. They each have a favourite food/treat, toy and habit! They have a vast array of noises and gestures to communicate with their handlers and other ferrets, such as 'dooking' an adorable squeaky noise they make when happy, hissing when annoyed and they can also wag their tail much like a dog! Ours tend to tail wag only when playing with each other in their tunnels, it's a much rarer but very endearing behaviour! Seeing a ferret dooking and 'dancing' around when delirious with joy is just so special to watch, it's like nothing you've ever seen before!

We have two Albino males, named Alfie and Shiro, who may seem creepy to some due to their red eyes but they're just as adorable and friendly as any other ferret. Albino is simply another type of ferret, like polecat coloured and silvers. They're just over 1 year old now, we've had them for about 9 months and I couldn't imagine life without them! Our new little girl is called Lola and is a slightly more unusual colour. She's a 3 month old sable blaze mitt, who is into absolutely everything at the moment and is learning very quickly! I can't wait to take her to ferret shows with the boys and start showing her off! If anyone wants to learn more about ferrets and keeping ferrets then you could check out my other blog (FerretDook) completely devoted to the subject here. For now, here they are!

Shiro

Alfie

Lola on her first day with us.

Lola.

Alfie asleep on his 'daddy' :)

Shiro isn't short of cuddles either!

We also have a Syrian hamster called Faye. She's 11 months old at the moment and we've had her for 10 months. Syrian hamsters are also known as golden hamsters, and are one of the most popular pets, especially for young children. They are fairly low maintenance pets, not ever really needing to visit the vets in most cases. Unfortunately, although they are commonplace here now as we breed them for sale at pet shops and the like, they are now seen as vulnerable in the wild, as we are destroying their natural habitat. They usually live for 1 1/2 to 2 years although they have been known to live for four years! She has a fairly large Rotastak system, which I've collected over the years, comprising of several compartments and tubing for her to explore. She gets a hamster mix feed and fresh fruit/veg daily if possible. Hamsters tend to only eat what they want and stash the rest in a food store, which is why I can't understand how some people manage to make their hamsters overweight! All three of mine have been skinny little things, even with additional treats like cheese every so often! Faye is quite a reclusive hamster, so we don't get to take too many photos, but here she is.

Faye.

Faye with a couple of her toys for outside play.