“Every year the scenario would be repeated in a delightful seasonal pattern,” Haring explains. Adult Coquerel's sifakas can live up to thirty years, and they reach sexual maturity once they are two years old. The Kratt brothers hoped to host their wildlife show for kids with an unusual co-host: a sifaka named Zoboo. The Los Angeles Zoo has a breeding group of four animals (an adult pair and their offspring), the Philadelphia Zoo has a sibling pair, and the St. Louis Zoo has a breeding group along with six other institutions in the USA. More specifically, the Coquerel’s sifaka lives in the dry deciduous forests of northwest Madagascar. Nursing continues, in a steady decline in importance in the infant’s diet, until it is weaned at approximately 5 – 6 months of age. Madagascar is the native home of the coquerel’s sifaka. These stunning primates differ from other lemur species by their dramatic mode of locomotion: sitting upright, they spring through the trees using the strength of their back legs. Winged sumac is the only plant that will freeze well, without disintegrating upon thawing. Sifaka groups will be studied in highly degraded habitat, such as in villages and adjacent to crop fields, as well as comparative samples from continuous forests in order to examine how groups living in … Consider symbolically adopting Pompeia the sifaka through the DLC’s Adopt a Lemur Program! They also … But it came as no surprise to anyone who was familiar with Flavia’s group that the Kratts selected Jovian and his somewhat elderly father Nigel to be the model for Zoboo. Coquerel’s sifakas live in social groups of between three and 10 individuals, and age and sex composition of the groups vary widely. So, throughout their life, females have the opportunity to … Like all lemurs, it is endemic to Madagascar. Sifakas also have an enlarged cecum — in the figure above, the secum is the structure that looks like a rattlesnake’s tail — which is another 1x body length. Like all lemurs, they are found only on the island of Madagascar. Outside the Duke Lemur Center, Jovian was famous as “Zoboomafoo,” the leaping, prancing otherworldly star of the PBS Kids show by the same name, hosted by brothers Martin and Chris Kratt. Without their competitive cousins, lemurs adapted to live in the varied habitats that occur in Madagascar. The sifaka of Madagascar are distinguished from other lemurs by their mode of locomotion: these animals maintain a distinctly vertical posture and leap through the trees using just the strength of their back legs. Habitat/Diet . Coquerel’s sifaka inhabit Madagascar’s north-west, to the east and north of the Betsiboka River. Coquerel’s sifakas are polyandrous, females mating with intra-group males or with males from visiting groups. The Coquerel's sifaka's body is about 16 to 19 inches in length, and the tail measures 20 to 24 inches. Here they can be found in the north-west of the island. Hunting even takes place within national parks. Visit the Duke Lemur Center: The DLC is only partially funded by Duke, so we rely heavily on revenue from tours to help pay for lemur care and housing as well as our conservation work in Madagascar. Coquerel’s Sifaka have a unique brown and white coloration, and are … A Coquerel’s sifaka is a delicate leaf-eater from Madagascar’s dry northwestern forests. Learn more HERE. We encourage visitors to support local ecosystems and protect local habitats, similar to the way we're helping the local people in Madagascar preserve lemurs' natural habitat. Coquerel’s sifaka inhabit Madagascar’s north-west, to the east and north of the Betsiboka River. It's named after the alarm cry it makes when it sees an enemy (shee-fa'-ka). So, something as simple and fun as visiting the Lemur Center can help us help the lemurs! These areas get less than 14 inches of rain per year in the driest areas. Discover How Long Coquerel's Sifaka Lives. Though these animals spend much of their time in the forest canopy, they are also comfortable on the ground. In the wild, leaves comprise about 40-60% of sifakas’ diet; so it’s clear that browse is important, and introducing native NC browse plants into our sifakas’ diets has proved hugely beneficial. He was gentle with the newborns, carefully cradling and grooming them, protecting them from interested juveniles and technicians. North West of Madagascar, in areas north and east of the Betsiboka River Coquerel’s sifakas generally have white fur covering their backs and tails, with brick-red fur on their chests, arms, and legs. Coquerel's sifaka was once considered to be a subspecies of Verreaux's sifaka, but was eventually granted full species level, and is listed as endangered due to habitat loss and hunting. His job as a male sifaka was to watch over his group and to carefully monitor Pia’s frequent scent-marking, keenly anticipating the one day a year when she would come into estrus. Females are dominant to males, which gives them preferential access to food and the choice of with whom to mate. “When the time came for the infant’s introduction to Jovian, everyone always marveled at how intensely interested he was in the newborn,” remembers Haring. These teeth are tall, thin, and evenly spaced, and help to clean and comb their hair. “He was great to work with,” said Martin Kratt, a 1989 Duke graduate who had volunteered at the Lemur Center as a student. Gestation is for about 162 days and usually one infant is born, and this is during the dry season from June to July. Consider symbolically adopting Pompeia, a female sifaka, through the DLC’s Adopt a Lemur program! A female typically remains with her natal group, while a male is forced to disperse when he reaches maturity. Some sifaka sires could care less. Hunting Coquerel's sifakas used to be against local traditions, but that taboo is disappearing due to the cultural influences of immigrants. Sometimes, Coquerel’s sifaka lemur Propithecus coquereli descends to the bottom to cross open areas. Most of the time Zoboo would be played by a talking lemur puppet, but the brothers were interested in obtaining action footage of a real sifaka to intersperse with footage of the puppet. They auditioned several sifaka groups at the Lemur Center on film. Toxicodendron is the same genus as our poison ivy, which believe it or not some of our DLC sifakas in the forest enclosures like to eat!). They tend to stay to the Northern and Eastern parts of the Betsiboka River. *At the IUCN Red List Primate Specialist Group meeting in Antananarivo, Madagascar in 2018, all nine sifaka species were uplisted from endangered to critically endangered. Both through the trees and on the ground, Coquerel’s sifakas are good jumpers, easily travelling almost as far as 40 feet (12.2 meters) when moving from tree to tree. He occasionally play-wrestled on the forest floor with his sons and daughters, all the while maintaining a watchful eye to avoid the wrath of Pia, who never failed to chase him from choice food items and weighed 30% more than he did. Sifakas eat foliage and seasonal fruits, and their gastrointestinal systems are designed to optimize nutrient extraction from both. For further resources, please click here. 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