S0E0 Welcome to Aye-aye Pod

Hi, you're listening to iiPod, the official podcast of the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, North Carolina. I'm Matt Rortz, curator of fossils at the Duke Lemur Center. And I'm Megan McGrath, education programs manager at the Duke Lemur Center. So we should probably explain who we are real quick. Yeah, that's a good one. Megan, you know so much about the origins of the Duke Lemur Center and all of its work because you are in charge of the education department.

True, and that encompasses basically any kind of programming that happens on-site at the Lemur Center and lots of the communication that happens externally as well. So our virtual tour programming, our other virtual programs, all of our on-site tours.

events. Basically, we're the people who blab at everyone about the great things the Lemur Center does and the reasons they're so important. Which is part of the reason it's so important to have you making the podcast now. So we're downloading a lot of what lives in your head. And I'm the

Curator of fossils. That means I'm in charge of fossils. I'm interested in fossils. The reason I am is because I'm a paleontologist. And a paleontologist is someone who studies fossils. And fossils are objects that are found usually in the ground. They're from anything that's not alive today. And my research kind of goes deep into the past, kind of to the edge of when the dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago. I've actually gotten to go look for dinosaurs. I've stepped over that boundary.

And now at the Lemur Center, I'm responsible for the fossil collection that was brought here because... If the lemurs are kind of a living example of something that gives us a little bit of a glimpse into primate diversity and maybe a little bit into primate origins, the fossils are the root of all primates. So if we really want to look at where...

primates came from, where lemurs came from, and where the relatives of ultimately humans come from, we go into the fossil record to look for those objects. And a lot... of those fossils that are part of this story, both the primate line that includes lemurs and the primate line that includes humans, are actually at the Duke Lemur Center. One of the directors of the Lemur Center a couple of decades ago showed up

as a paleontologist. And part of why he was interested in being the director of the Lemur Center, his name, Elwynn Simons, wanted to use... the living collection and the fossil collection in dialogue. And so that's really what the Lemur Center is trying to do. And what we're trying to do in the fossil collection and the living collection is kind of work together just to put together the natural history of...

lemurs and humans and figure out how we all got here and ultimately where we're headed. I guess maybe we should start with what is the Duke Lemur Center, right? Yes. I think let's break it down. I'm always about breaking down the words. All right. Let's start with... The Duke. Why is it the Duke Weamer Center? We are a part of Duke University, and we are primarily located in Durham, North Carolina, although, as you will hear, that doesn't cover all of our operations.

Now we've got to cover the next word. Lemur, you want to take that one? Sure. So lemurs. Lemurs are an amazing group of mammals and also an amazing group of primates. And we are going to be defining the heck out of those words. But basically, they are... animals that are amazingly adapted to live in the trees, and sometimes also on the ground. They eat all kinds of food, and they are some of our favorite creatures on the planet. And they are all found on the island of Madagascar.

And the last word might seem a little bit self-explanatory, center, but I think it's a pretty important word to come back to because part of the reason we're starting this podcast is that the Duke Lieber Center covers a lot of things. that include a whole paleontology division, includes a whole education division, non-invasive research, conservation all the way over in Madagascar.

And most importantly, we have a population of living lemurs at the center that are the focus of all of this attention. And so we have about 200 animals that live at the Duke Lemur Center and are cared for by about 40 to 50 people. depending on what researchers are rotating through and what other folks. There's a huge team that is kind of focused on these animals and then everything else that gets associated with them. So why was the Duke Lemur Center founded?

So the Duke Lemur Center was originally founded by a group of researchers that were interested in the biology of lemurs. Partially because lemurs are a really, really, really fascinating group of primates because they preserve a lot of features.

that tell us about kind of the beginning of primates. Lemurs have been on an incredible evolutionary journey, but on some level, there are some very basic features that they share with animals we find in the fossil record from not that long after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

So the idea is whatever we can learn about the biology of lemurs can tell us something about what it means to be a primate. And part of the reason we care about what it means to be a primate is because you, Megan, and me, Meg. We are both primates. In fact, the person listening right now is also a primate. So we all have something we can learn from lemurs that's really important about our own biology, and it's also really important about their biology.

And so those initial kind of forays in trying to figure out how these animals' noses worked and how moms took care of babies started to evolve as more and more researchers started realizing that there were a lot of questions that they had.

that they wanted to ask through non-invasive methods. So this is like observational work, letting the animals be as natural as possible, because that really is key to us learning about how these animals behave and ultimately help us learn about how we behave and how our bodies work. So...

From so humble a beginning, from a couple of lemurs living in the forests of Durham, North Carolina, the colony started to grow. Species that were brought in started to be more diverse than the initial group, which was mostly, I think... If anyone thinks of a lemur, what they think of is a ringtail lemur. I like to call them the poster child or the token lemur. And they earned it. They are magnificent, beautiful creatures. They're striped tails.

are impossible not to notice. It's true, and they're hardy little guys. They're from such a not-friendly region of Madagascar that it's not surprising that they do so well in human care. And so we started with... a lot of ringtails and some other diversity of other lemurs. But it was over time that the Lemur Center started to change its focus or diversify its focus to think more about the conservation mission, because lemurs are also very endangered.

We evolved literally the next step in the Lemur Center a little over 35 years ago was a conservation branch of the mission, which has interesting ties to the fossil collection that I'm sure we'll get into later. But that's a spoiler alert. then branched into the fact that if we're learning about the lemurs and we're caring about the lemurs, we need to learn more about the land where they're from, the people where they're from, and all of those factors rolled into one.

But we have been on the ground in Madagascar. That's called in situ conservation work. We also do ex situ conservation work with our conservation breeding program and the animals we have here in North Carolina. And then as things progressed past that point, an informal sort of education program started at the Lemur Center.

You hear many folks who were here at Duke decades ago saying, oh, yeah, I think I went out there for a tour with my class once. Whereas now, prior to the dreaded pandemic that reset everything, we were hosting over 30,000 visitors in a year. At this, you know, relatively small research facility that became a conservation facility that then became an education facility. And while all of that was happening behind the scenes, there was also the development of the fossils.

A lot of conservation questions that we have about how the world is changing in the future comes from studying the past. We know the world was different not that long ago, and it looks like it's changing pretty quickly. And so really... paleontology is part of the conservation mission and also part of our ongoing just investigation into what it means to be a lemur. And I think you brought up a really good point with that crossover there, which is the Lemur Center is incredibly unique.

place for a lot of different reasons. Of course, we have the most diversity of species of lemurs outside of their native Madagascar, but I think the most unique thing about the Lemur Center is the fact that We are literally doing all of those things. There are lots of wonderful initiatives at zoos to incorporate as much research as they can. Or there are facilities that will support conservation or even send staff over to help. But it's rare to find a facility.

that is running our own research program. running our own conservation initiative, running our own education program, running our own museum and paleontology space, in addition to collaborating with other entities that do all of those things. We do nothing in a vacuum. But having all of those things under one umbrella, under one hub, is incredibly unique and an incredible opportunity because...

we can talk in theory about how your research would impact someone working on conservation. But when we all see each other on a regular basis and talk about it on a regular basis, What our researchers study in terms of diet and gut microbiome can affect literally the diet that our lemurs are fed to better their welfare. Or what you're studying could inform decisions made by conservationists as they're working on it.

educator, I get to sit in the middle and just pick at all these different strands and find all these amazing things that are currently and previously happening that are all interconnected to blab about. And it's great. And so that's really part of why we're starting this podcast. So this is our first episode. And we have a lot of stories that we want to unspool that connect all these dots from all across the center. And ultimately, we'll bring in a lot of...

research that then is part of, or research and initiatives that touch on this diversity within the Lemur Center, but might end up going very far afield. Because it all kind of comes back. Like, it's such a... massive place with such a massive mission that we can't help but ultimately get involved in these really big questions about the origins of certain diseases or about the origins of our own lineage or about the way that we can protect the planet itself.

So, as we get ready to launch into what will be this journey through the story of the Lemur Center and the animals that we are fascinated by...

We'd like to give you a little bit more of a background on where we came from, these kind of voices floating in your earbud. Yeah, there's a bird chat. You know what? Someone else has joined the podcast. They have. They want to talk about their background as a bird. It's a natural history podcast. There's going to be a bird in the background. So as we get ready to launch into the podcast, we're going to be interviewing a lot of other people and having a lot of conversations about...

all kinds of things related to the Lemur Center. I think it's important to know kind of where we're coming from, where our backgrounds are, and why we ask the kinds of questions that we do. I... Started out as a kid running around Florida, picking up every lizard that I could find, playing in the lake, playing with lots of animals, fascinated by animals, but was never understood that being interested in animals, being interested in the outdoors,

playing in the muck was all science or the precursor to science. I convinced myself through my education that I didn't like science because it was looking through a microscope at tiny things that didn't make sense to me. I was in college at Elon University and was studying psychology and international studies. I'm still fascinated by both of those things, by languages. Started an internship in my spare time because I still loved animals. That was animal.

care with big cats and wolves and small carnivores and I fell in love with it and it became very clear very quickly that research was not my bag but being out with the animals learning about them eventually parroting all that information back to other people led me to go from being an animal keeper into working in development, working in events, working in giving tours and eventually I supervised the education programs and events.

And when a position opened up at the Lemur Center, I wasn't initially interested because of a strong love or fascination of lemurs. It was actually because I was interested in working at... Duke University at a facility that did research, that did conservation, that did all of these things combined, because...

I couldn't narrow myself down when I was going to school. I couldn't go through my plan of going into my master's and PhD in neuropsychology. I decided it was way too narrow and I wanted to learn too much. And a place like the Lemur Center is the perfect place for someone like me.

who just can't narrow it down. I can learn about all of those different things, and depending on who I'm talking to on what day, I can spew all of that information back out to people, and that's a lot of what this podcast is probably going to be.

On the flip side, I think you have a different version of the story, but maybe we just took different turns. For me, I'm originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. which is a place where many paleontologists have come from because there's a ton of fossils, like literally tons, like there are miles of fossils under the city of Cincinnati. And so collecting those from, they're like from hundreds of millions of years ago, things like trilobites and brachiopods, basically ancient oceans.

used to like flow through the Midwest. But those collections kind of then ran up against learning about paleontology in museums and in books, which is really fascinating. because everything had a name and everything had a time period and everything had a size, it felt like there were no more fossils to discover. So I've always been really fascinated by the natural world and was fascinated by where all these things came from, but I didn't think there was anything...

new or necessary to do in that world. And so by the time I got to college, where I'm exploring the different kinds of things I'm curious about. I'm interested in history, and I'm interested in literature, and I'm interested in medicine, and I'm trying to poke at all these. I happen to take a class on historical biology, which is basically the story of the Earth.

And it was taught by a paleontologist named Bill Osich. And Bill Osich was doing a job of some kind. He was teaching me about this and also doing research that he would mention every now and then. So obviously someone was still learning something about the past. And so... I talked to him after class about, like, what are you doing and do you need help? And that kind of set me off on a journey that has ultimately landed me here at the Lemur Center. That journey...

It took me through Stony Brook University, where I got my Ph.D., and while I was working on that, I got to work in amazing fossil collections in Egypt. There are amazing fossils here at the Duke Lemur Center from Egypt. And so I actually came to the Lemur Center to do some research and was exposed to this amazing collection that we have here.

I also at Stony Brook work with people who were fascinated by Madagascar. And Madagascar is an amazing island that we're going to talk a lot about. And through that, I was exposed to all these questions. And so when the opportunity came up to actually help lead the fossil. and figure out how to share this collection with researchers, how to share it with the broader public. The other piece of why I was excited to work at the Lemur Center and excited to be here now is...

I'm a paleontologist. I study things that have been dead for a very, very long time. But the connection between the past and the present can sometimes be hard to do because you're a paleontologist working in a natural history museum and the conservation biologists are working at the zoo on the other side of the city.

or in another department. The Lemur Center, we got all that under one roof. And so one of the reasons I was excited to be here is because I could just pop over and talk to people who are... trying to understand extinction going on in the present. And I can ask them, what kind of information do you need from the past to help make better decisions about conservation? So we have animals from Madagascar and really from all over the place that are preserved for future generations.

and future environments, really, to experience and understand. So I'm really excited to be here as a paleontologist, but also someone who's really curious about everything that's going on at the Lemur Center, like that diversity of... missions is something that I wanted to be a part of. And so I'm really excited that we get to share that with all of you now.

Absolutely. And I think it's important to say that we've mentioned a whole lot of other people that we work with just at the Lemur Center. We haven't even really gotten into our Malagasy colleagues, other organizations that we work with, other scientists and researchers. Other people who've been here in the past, since obviously we haven't been here since 1966.

So we're going to talk about a lot of different subjects on this podcast. But as we're talking about these things, we'll pull in experts, we'll do interviews, and we also will fully acknowledge that we are not the experts on every single subject. We're also just exploring...

with you as we're learning about these things literally just last week i learned a new thing about eye eyes which are both of our favorite lemurs um that i didn't know and i have studied so much about these animals and been working here for almost six years so uh there's so much

much more to learn. We'll probably learn new things with you. And we may also get a few things wrong. So feel free to just let us know. We'll correct it. So if people wanted to follow us, Megan, what are the various ways they can keep track of what's going on at the Lemur Center? Absolutely. So I think the best hub of information is our website, which if you search the words Duke and Lemur, you will find, but the URL is lemur.duke.

And there is fantastic information on there all about all of the different programs at the Lemur Center we've already talked about. There's also a fantastic virtual tour that is 75 minutes long. Matt features in it. I feature in it. That gives you a great... introduction to what we do and what it looks like on the ground here we've got videos about our conservation programs in Madagascar but if you want current

updates on what's going on all around the lemur center i'd say social media is a great way we've got a fantastic facebook instagram and now tiktok as well that you can follow as you get updates and you get adorable baby photos at the same time which is pretty crucial

Yeah. And if while you're learning more about the Lemur Center or updating yourself on the latest discoveries and you're inspired to help support the Lemur Center's mission, plenty of resources on the website for how you can donate and the initiatives we're trying to fund. So check that out. if you want to support us. Thanks for joining us on this Duke Lemur Center journey. Subscribe and discover more episodes each season.

We look forward to sharing more about the Duke Lemur Center with you soon. And in the meantime, follow us on social media and visit us at lemur.duke.edu. A special thanks to Julie Borks, who edited this episode. And thank you! And goodbye for now from Matt and Megan and all the primates at the Duke Lemur Center.