Valentine’s Day forces couples to squeeze a least several month’s worth of chocolates, flowers and overt displays of affection into one evening. Like humans, red ruffed lemurs cram as much romance as possible into a short window of time. Females can have sex for just a few days each year. Their vaginas actually close. I’d say this lemur “holiday” has more significance than the human celebration of St. Valentinus.
About 18 of these lemurs live at the Duke Lemur Center, where I conduct cognition experiments twice a week. This Valentine’s day, without plans of my own, I toyed with the idea that I might play Cupid. Cast as Yente in my sixth-grade production of Fiddler on the Roof, I was once considered an apt matchmaker. My preteen abilities have since faded. Two weeks ago, I interrupted ruffed lemur sex.
The lovers were Pyxis, a slightly deformed female who has nevertheless become one of the most prolific lemur mothers at the center, and her mate, Hunter. Pyxis and Hunter share an enclosure with their five grown offspring. This Monday afternoon, I separated the two, to collect footage of Hunter for a playback experiment. When he seemed too distracted to comply with my work, I exited the cage and opened one shift door to allow Pyxis in. As I moved to open a door that would let the five young lemurs in, I saw Hunter leap onto Pyxis’s back, making sounds I have never heard a lemur make before.
Raucous commotion echoed in the building wing as the kids flooded in. The sex stopped promptly. Hunter moved somewhat distressfully around the cage, emitting open-jawed, submissive chatters (females are dominant to males).
Yup—I prevented a lemur orgasm.
The next Friday, Hunter and Pyxis were separated from the group permanently, but I saw no “mounting” that afternoon. I worry I caused them to miss their moment. I’ll see my dateless Valentine’s Day as karma.
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