At Jaderpark - Germany - Guinea pigs are used to keep the gras short at the Ring-tailed lemur Island. When they have finished their job, they are placed in another enclosure.
I remember seeing meerkats in the gorilla and a couple of other primate enclosures at Artis zoo, 2008. Apparently they eat mice nesting in the deep litter and thus keep the vermin under control. Maybe london zoo should take note!
@garyjp, what about a mixed enclosure with red howler monkey, white-faced saki, emperor tamarin, gouldi tamarin and silvery marmoset, like in Apenheul, or red titi + goldenheaded lion tamarin + pied tamarin, also in Apenheul....
In La Vallée the Singes, they used to have quite some mixed SA enclosures too. A family of red titi with a pair of golden lion tamarins kept together with a family of white-faced saki and a family of silvery marmosets (used to be common marmoset and emperor tamarin as well). Another couple of red titi, with a group of 60+ Peruvian squirrel monkeys and families of white-faced saki and emperor tamarin were kept in a different area. In another area, red titi are mixed with golden-headed lion tamarins and Geoffroy's marmoset.
Brilliant idea. Guinea Pigs are excellent lawn mowers, cropping the grass really short and don't tunnel like rabbits..
Indeed. I hardly needed to cut my grass for about 6 years when we had them, just kept moving the run around every day
Primate mix A few years ago London Zoo established a free range population of I think Common Marmoset in the roof area of one of the indoor Rhino enclosures (Elephant & Rhino Pavilion)
Went to Chessington today where they had squirrel monkeys with an Agouti, and labelling also said armadillo
Really interested in this thread! Would love to know peoples experience in mixing L. catta's with small monkeys.
I suspect it doesn’t work, with most small primates being quicker on the uptake (and quicker generally!) than your average lemur.
Well we do have C. goeldii's with our ring tailed and ruffed lemurs and that has not been a problem. Maybe we are just lucky though.
Artis used to have a few ring-tailed lemurs in the Forest house together with Pygmy marmosets, Goeldi's marmosets, white-faced saki's and Grey-handed Night Monkeys. I believe this combination did work, however the lemurs were removed from the enclosure because they were ''harassing" the visitors.
Not that smaller than the Cattas but Barcelona mixes a Lemur Catta with the last Eastern putty-nosed monkey and a talapoin, and it works to the point where the three primates looked like a little family back when I visited.
Not related to lemurs, but Artis also keeps several small monkeys together with Java mouse deers (Tragulus javanicus). The mouse deers are kept together in an enclosure with both Goeldi's marmosets and Bearded emperor tamarins. Additionaly the mouse deers are also kept in two enclosures with pygmy marmosets and lastly they used to be kept together with a two-toed sloth and pymy marmosets. I can also recall that a Syrian rock hyrax was kept together with Bolivian squirrel monkey(s).
