Cuddly comfort: Tahina the lemur holds on tight to her teddy bear





Pictured: The incredibly rare baby lemur clutching its teddy 'mother'
21st January 2009

With her bright hazel eyes, mop of fluffy grey hair, and tiny black face, this adorable baby lemur looks happy to have found something to cling on to.

Staff at Besancon Zoo in eastern France have named the newly born Madagascar lemur as Tahina - one of only 17 Propithecus coronatus lemurs living in captivity worldwide.

She is being cared for by vets, who must feed her around the clock with a tiny syringe filled with a mixture of cat and baby milk.

Tahina has also been given a cuddly teddy bear that she can clutch to like she would in the wild with her real mother.

Looking like a cross between a cat, dog and a squirrel, the lemur is the smallest of the
world's primates.
 







                       

Daunting start: This baby lemur has been born into the world without its mother

With their clever foxy face, big amber eyes (as adults), and trademark tail as long as itself, they are native primarily to Madagascar, the vast island that broke away from Africa 60 million years ago.

They were wiped out from other parts of Africa centuries ago by bigger and more aggressive primates. 

In the wilds around Lake Aloatra in eastern Madagascar, the lemur is still under threat from the villagers who eat them as a local delicacy.










                               

Round-the-clock care: A veterinarian feeds Tahina with a tiny syringe

Many species have become extinct over the past century, mainly due to habitat destruction and hunting.

But the good news for this endangered species is that captive-bred lemurs appear to survive successfully after being turned loose in their native Madagascar, where they are under threat from the destruction of their natural habitat.

Lemurs share some of the social and behavioral characteristics of monkeys and form social groups.

They are also noisy animals, making a bizarre range of sounds from the grunts and swears of brown lemurs to the eerie, wailing call of the indri, which has been likened to a cross between a police siren and the song of a humpback whale.

Article: HERE