The Duke Lemur Center lost one of its most beloved—and unique—members last week.
Romeo, who was the last living diademed sifaka to be housed successfully in captivity in the Western Hemisphere, died Jan. 21. At 19 years old, Romeo exceeded his expected lifespan and touched the lives of many throughout his time.
“He was a pretty special animal to us and all the technicians, the animal people who worked at the lemur center and even people who visited really fell in love with him,” Conservation Coordinator Charles Welch said. “You try not to do that kind of thing at a place like [the Lemur Center], but you do anyway—he’s such a beautiful animal.”
Romeo was brought to the Center from Madagascar in 1993 with two other diademed sifakas, one of which was his mother. Welch, who was also a member of Romeo’s capture mission, noted the diademed sifakas’ leaf-eating diet as the main cause of Romeo’s declining health.
The diets of Romeo’s species differ from other lemurs, in that they are leaf-eaters, but they also eat seeds, flowers and nectar, Welch said. Their diverse diet makes their digestive systems more complex in comparison to the other lemur species.
“He gets a pelleted folivore diet, and we feed him what we feed the other sifakas and do the best we can, but replicating a wild diet is impossible,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that the species just didn’t do well. We know that we won’t try that species in captivity anymore—at least not in the near future.”
Despite being an endangered species, diademed sifakas are not the rarest of the sifakas and are pretty widespread in the wilderness of eastern Madagascar, with a population estimated at more than 6,000 lemurs, Welch said. He added that the problem is that there is not much natural habitat left in Madagascar for any of the lemurs, and the diademed sifakas’ large bodies make them ideal hunting targets for locals.
Romeo was not a popular research subject because researchers often need sample sizes of more than one individual, so he participated in few projects throughout his time, Lemur Center Registrar David Haring said. Romeo was still one of the staff favorites.
“It’s a sad thing—watching him not thrive has been hard for all of the staff,” Welch said. “But he’s also at the same time a favorite of everybody’s because he was a real sweetheart and because he didn’t have members of his own species to be with.”
Although another breed of sifakas resides at the Lemur Center, Romeo never seemed to take to the other lemurs after his fellow diademeds died years earlier, Barnett said. For lemurs, grooming each other is an essential component of social bonding. Despite numerous efforts to get him to interact with other primates, Romeo socialized mainly with the technicians.
“Romeo was an amazing animal with a magnetic personality. He was such a charmer and a pleasure to work with,” said Niki Barnett, education manager and interim development officer. “He would always love a good back scratch or armpit massage from his hard working technicians that always took extra special care of him and ensured he received the social bonding that primates so need.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.