Zoo announces birth of twin lemurs

JAMES HORE
Evening Star 24

COLCHESTER Zoo has announced lemur twins have been born.

The ring-tailed lemurs were born on “Lemur Island” earlier this month.

The twins are said to be easy to spot, clinging to their mother Madison, or another female lemur in the group.

Adult lemurs within the group help to care for the babies, feeding and playing with them until they are fully mature.

A spokeswoman said: “Their mum Madison has proven to be an excellent mother in the past, and the babies are thriving in the sunny weather of the past few weeks.”

Ring-tailed lemurs have a gestation period of four months, and the babies weigh 50 to 80g at birth.

Within a year the twins will be independent of their mother can even start to breed at 15 months and live up to 20 years in captivity.

Ring-tailed lemurs are found on the island of Madagascar and differ from other lemur species because they spend a large amount of time on the forest floor, rather than in the canopy.

Their numbers in the wild are being threatened by hunting, tree felling for charcoal production and deforestation for livestock pastures.

One of the zoo's new baby lemurs

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