exhibit modification

June 11, 2013. The former mandrill exhibit being made ready for black and white ruffed lemurs. The two new lemurs have arrived and are being held in separate quarters in the night house. Male is from Gladys Porter Zoo and female is from St Louis Zoo.

Is the zoo planning on getting more lemurs, as 2 is a very small number?

Apparently not. I was surprised by this too, but I am not a lemur expert. They are on a breeding recommendation, with hopes of just having the two and their occasional offspring. (This is the reason for the modification - the old chain link fence was not narrow enough to prevent baby lemurs from slipping through).

- Ok thank you. I wish they could have found a different primate species that was from mainland africa as opposed to a lemur species. I also think that if your gonna have 1 species of lemur cant it be a rarer species such as Sifaka which do god with smaller social groupings.

Well I wish it would have been serval or caracal, but we cannot all have what we want.

However, the zoo is in the final stretch of choosing a new director, so it will be interesting to see the directions we take after this...

Do you know why they decided to stop exhibiting mandrills?

Our male died and we only had a lone female. Apparently no available companions, so it was decided (among AZA colleagues) the best decision would be to send remaining female mandrill to Phoenix Zoo to pair up with two young siblings who recently lost their mother. (At least I think that is their situtation - but do not quote me on that part, I am sure it is Phoenix however).