On my birthday, my supa-fine woman surprised me with a trip to Duke University's Lemur Center. It's a preserve, out in the wilds of Durham, NC, where Duke keeps 200+ lemurs; and you can go visit, if you make an appointment.

That's a Coquerel's Sifaka.

The lemurs we saw were all in outdoor pens, but there is an enclosed chunk of forest where they get to run free. I think they said you can get tours of that, too. Next time!

Those are some ringtailed lemurs. They have a ton of ringtails.

The tour was an hour long, mostly spent going from pen to pen, looking at the different species - none of whom seemed at all interested in us. Unfortunately, they were all behind chain-link fence and it was hard to get pictures where the sun wasn't glaring off of it. But, I got a few.

I don't know what species this guy/gal belongs to.

They were all a lot smaller than I thought they'd be. The ringtails, for example range from 5 to 6 pounds - less than half the size of Pepper! And most of a lemur is tail - at least by length. They look a bit like a cross between a fox and a monkey. And their fur is very soft - as we could tell from the pelts they had laying out in the gift shop. Yipe.

Most of the lemurs we saw were outdoors, in the pens, but there are also a few nocturnal species in their own windowless building. There was an Aye-Aye, Lorises both slow and slender, and a "fat-tailed dwarf" lemur - maybe something else, I forget. We got to see them, through glass, but there was only a dim red light (like a darkroom), so I got no pictures. But, they were cool - very small and very quick, almost like lizards.

A good time. I'd like to see some more of them, running around in the woods, especially. Maybe I could take some classes and get to experiment on them... think Duke would take me?