To mimic the seasonal changes the lemurs experience over the course of the year in Madagascar, the team also gradually adjusted the lights from 12 hours a day to a more "winter-like" 9.5 hours, and lowered the thermostat from 77 degrees Fahrenheit to the low 50s. To find out, Duke Lemur Center staff teamed up to build fake tree hollows out of wooden boxes and placed them in the dwarf lemurs' indoor enclosures, as a haven for them to wait out the winter. Which got Blanco to wondering: After years in captivity, do dwarf lemurs still have what it takes to survive seasonal swings like their wild counterparts do? And what can these animals teach us about how to safely put the human body on pause too, slowing the body's processes long enough for, say, life-saving surgery or even space travel? But they rarely stay in this suspended state for longer than 24 hours. But what she and others observed in the wild didn't square with how the animals behaved when cared for in captivity.Ĭaptive dwarf lemurs are fed extra during the summer so they can bulk up like they do in the wild, and then they'll hunker down and let their heart rate and temperature drop for short bouts - a physiological condition known as torpor. "Hibernation is literally in their DNA," Blanco said.īlanco has studied dwarf lemurs for 15 years in Madagascar, fitting them with tracking collars to locate them when they are hibernating in their tree holes or underground burrows. The researchers say recreating some of the seasonal fluctuations of the lemurs' native habitat might be good for the well-being of a species hardwired for hibernation, and also may yield insights into metabolic disorders in humans. "Indeed, our dwarf lemurs hibernated just like their wild kin do in western Madagascar." "They did not disappoint," said research scientist Marina Blanco, who led the project. But now our closest hibernating relative has gone into true, deep hibernation in captivity for the first time at the Duke Lemur Center. While zonked, it lives off of fat stored in its tail.Īnimals that hibernate in the wild rarely do so in zoos and sanctuaries, with their climate controls and year-round access to food. This squirrel-sized primate lives in the forests of Madagascar, where it spends up to seven months each year mostly motionless and chilling, using the minimum energy necessary to withstand the winter.
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