BRATISLAVA zoo celebrated the birth of a baby ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) on March 25, the first such birth of a lemur raised in the local zoo.
In May, the lemur was still doing fine and enjoying its mother’s care, the head of the zoo Miloslava Šavelová told the TASR newswire. The baby was still being breast-fed, but had already tried some fruits, vegetables and yogurts.
“The gender of the baby is not yet known as we do not want to put stress on the mother and the baby by separating them,” Šavelová explained. The father of the family, Riško, was born in 2002 in a Czech zoo in Ústí nad Labem, and the mother, Zojka came from a Czech zoo in Jihlava.
“Until recently, our group of ring-tailed lemurs consisted of two females and one male,” the zoo’s head said. “The dominant female, Eva, was old and unable to bear the young, but she prevented the younger Zojka from mating with Riško.” However, when the old female died, Zojka soon became pregnant.
Lemurs catta are born after 136 days of pregnancy – usually with a single offspring. They immediately burrow into the fur on the mother’s belly. Offspring are breast-fed for five months and are usually completely self-reliant at six months. Lemurs come from the island of Madagascar, and don’t naturally live elsewhere in the world.
