ABSTRACT
I was getting desperate. It was August 1984 and my year abroad at Duke University’s Zoology Department had only started two weeks earlier. I had signed up for an animal behavior course—and I desperately needed a topic for my first independent project by the end of the next day. I had arrived at Duke as an exchange student from Tübingen University in Germany with a rather unfocused interest in organismal biology—and in mammals. During my orientation week, I had visited the Duke University Primate Center (DUPC, now Duke Lemur Center), where I first encountered these cat-sized grunting primates called lemurs that bore little resemblance to what I had gotten to know as primates from zoos and television. As I struggled to come up with a project idea, I remembered my visit to the DUPC and decided to do my project on lemurs, even though I did not know anything about them, and they came in all sizes and colors. Not knowing where to begin, I sat down in frustration in front of some outdoor enclosures. Before too long, I noticed a small, cute lemur climbing up the fence in front of me, reaching out with its arm towards me (visitors were allowed to feed them raisins in those days). The small plastic tag attached to the fence revealed that this curious beast was a juvenile female crowned lemur—then called Lemur coronatus. After interacting with her for a little while, my heart had melted, and my project was clear.
