Primarily Primates » » New resident Aludra is out of this world
Posted on:
November 20, 2018
By Brooke Chavez
This summer we welcomed red ruffed lemur Aludra to Primarily Primates. She arrived from a zoo where she lived with a longtime companion who had recently succumbed to cancer.
She is named after the 87th brightest star in the night sky, just under 3,200 light years from Earth, a blue supergiant star roughly 60 times the size of the sun.
Interestingly, her entire family was named after celestial bodies—her father was named Comet, her mom was Galaxy, she even had a sister they called Pyxis—a southern constellation used by mariners for navigation.
It seems Aludra was destined to shine and she certainly does at PPI. She is one-of-a-kind for Primarily Primates. Red-ruffed lemurs have a beautiful color and are critically endangered (as most all lemurs are now). She is becoming acclimated to her new surroundings and she seems enthralled by all of the sounds and sites. Once she settles in even more, she will be introduced to a new group of lemurs so she can develop new bonds. She might even agree to share her favorite treats—tamarind pods and bananas.
Aludra was born at the Duke Lemur Center, which was established to promote better understanding of prosimians, and nearly 240 rare and endangered prosimian primates. Prosimian primates are the world’s largest and most diverse population of lemurs outside their native Madagascar.