Story By: Anastasia Smirnova, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder,Agency: Central European News
Two endangered lemurs named Julian and Skipper after characters from animated hit ‘Madagascar’ are melting the hearts of visitors at a Russian aquarium.
The two male lemurs are named Julian and Skipper, and they are accompanied by female lemur Masha – named after the hit Russian show Masha and the Bear.
They have joined the ranks at Yekaterinburg Aquarium in the city of Yekaterinburg in the south-western Russian region of Sverdlovsk Oblast.
Julian and Skipper were named after characters from the DreamWorks animated hit ‘Madagascar’ while Masha’s name was chosen by visitors to the aquarium, according to reports.
An aquarium spokesperson said: “Lemur cats or cattas live in families in their natural habitat and the same takes place at our aquarium in Yekaterinburg.”
The spokesperson added that every group, known as a conspiracy, is led by an alpha-female and has strong hierarchical relationships.
The adorable aquarium additions reportedly arrived from a zoo in Prague in the Czech Republic.
Lemurs are native only to the island of Madagascar and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers them to be the world’s most endangered mammals, noting that as of 2013 up to 90 percent of all lemur species face extinction within the next 20 to 25 years.
Netizen ‘Tolstiy’ said: “Masha is a rock star. She keeps those guys on their toes, leads them to eat and makes them wash dishes, and then she lies down in a hammock as they sweep the floors!”
A guest user of an online Russian forum commented: “I wish those lemurs could live in their natural habitat.”
Another guest user wrote: “So cute and so fluffy, I am in love.”
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