Wild Inside the National Zoo Primate Parenthood
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00 [music]
00:04 This spring we are raising some of the world's rarest newborns.
00:08 All the primates that were born were born to first-time mothers.
00:13 So we're very excited to watch them grow up.
00:16 [music]
00:19 [music]
00:33 [music]
00:35 This is the first time we've ever had red ruff lemur babies
00:39 or swamp monkey babies at the National Zoo.
00:42 [music]
00:45 Lemurs are the most endangered mammal on Earth.
00:48 So it's very important that we breed them.
00:51 There are over a hundred species of lemurs,
00:54 and only two of those species actually build nests in trees,
00:57 and red ruff lemurs happen to be one of them.
01:00 Red ruff lemurs are the only primates that actually give birth to litters.
01:04 Molly has been an excellent lemur mother.
01:07 We could not have asked for more,
01:09 especially since she was a first-time mom this year.
01:13 Molly's three babies are a little over a month and a half old now.
01:18 [music]
01:21 Mom and dad will actually take turns watching the young.
01:26 If Molly decides to leave the nest and grab some food to eat,
01:29 the males will actually switch with her,
01:32 and they will watch the young while she goes off to eat.
01:35 In the wild, there's about a 65% infant mortality rate with lemurs.
01:41 A lot of that is from accidents and falling.
01:44 So when we found out that Molly was pregnant,
01:47 we had to baby-proof the entire exhibit as much as possible.
01:50 All right, so let's check all of our knots, make sure everything's still good.
01:54 We made sure we had the right nesting material.
01:57 We filled the exhibit with extra mulch and hay to make everything nice and soft.
02:02 When you're spending a lot of time in trees, and you're a baby,
02:05 and you're just learning how to climb and jump and maneuver,
02:08 there's a lot of room for error.
02:11 [music]
02:22 As keepers, we help Molly raise her young by keeping a very watchful eye.
02:27 We want to make sure that it looks like they're maintaining weight,
02:30 that they're first growing in nicely.
02:33 When the babies are first born, Mom spends a lot of time nursing.
02:36 After about the first month, they start exploring and putting things in their mouths.
02:40 They actually started mouthing a bunch of the food pieces that we would put in the pans.
02:45 And I'd imagine that in the wild they would do the same thing.
02:50 This is Mom right here, by the way.
02:53 Primates live in a variety of environments,
02:56 so it's very important for mothers to pass on the skill sets that are necessary
03:01 for their offspring to live in their particular habitat.
03:08 In the wild, Al and Swamp Monkeys are found in central Africa in the Congo River Basin.
03:13 They're one of the few monkeys that really enjoy living near
03:18 and using water in their daily lives.
03:22 Layla is a first-time mom to Zawadi.
03:25 Layla has adapted beautifully to being a mother.
03:28 I think she's really enjoying it.
03:31 She doesn't seem phased by it at all anymore.
03:36 For Layla, it's important that she teach Zawadi how to swim,
03:41 as well as how to look for food, what's appropriate to eat and what's not.
03:47 Swamp Monkeys would be using similar behaviors in the wild.
03:50 They'd spend a large part of their day foraging for food,
03:53 so we try to replicate that as best we can in captivity.
03:59 Get some over here.
04:01 All right, I'll start on this end.
04:03 Most primates carry their infants with them at all times, just like a human mother would.
04:08 Layla has carried Zawadi most of the time since she was born.
04:13 She's starting to put her down and letting her explore her environment more and more now.
04:21 Layla and Dariah are full siblings, so they're full sisters.
04:25 So Dariah is Zawadi's aunt.
04:27 So Dariah is very protective of Zawadi and often stays very close to her and Layla.
04:34 Zawadi's dad is the only male Swamp Monkey that we have, Nub Armstrong.
04:38 Male Swamp Monkeys really don't have a lot to do with the rearing of offspring
04:42 other than protecting them.
04:44 So we do not see him interacting with Zawadi a whole lot yet.
04:51 Slowly over time, Layla is releasing the reins,
04:55 and Zawadi is actually also becoming more and more curious about her environment.
04:59 So it's just great fun to watch her grow up.
05:04 We see a lot of parallels between lemur families, primate families, and people.
05:10 These babies, they want to be everywhere all at once.
05:14 And then you see mom, and mom's trying to wrangle everyone together,
05:18 and you see dad, and he's not sure what's going on.
05:23 Watching Zawadi from the first day she was born and seeing this tiny, helpless infant
05:29 and how much care she received from her mom and the other members of her group
05:34 is something that we can all relate to.
05:38 [silence]
05:47 [music]
05:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]