Ring-Tailed Lemurs a First in Chile

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Four ring-tailed lemurs are getting all the attention at Chile's National Zoo in Santiago. They are a first for Chile and were brought over from Argentina.

Four cute new additions to Chile's National Zoo in Santiago.

The ring-tailed lemurs were brought from neighboring Argentina, but are native to Madagascar.

The zoo's director Mauricio Fabry said the endangered primates are very adaptable and a first for Chile.

[Mauricio Fabry, Director of the National Zoo]:
"A long time ago, the National Zoo had the Coffee Lemur, the Common Brown Lemur, but this lemur is much more attractive for its shape and color, and for its adaptation to the environment."

The long-tailed species shot to international fame following the 2005 animated movie "Madagascar," which featured a ring-tailed lemur named King Julien.

Visitors to the zoo were appropriately charmed.

[Elias Segura, Visitor]:
"They are beautiful and have black-and-white tails, they are tiny."

[Juan Caceres, Visitor]:
"I think they (lemurs) are beautiful because I hadn't seen them at all. I didn't have the experience of watching them."

Decades of logging, mining and farming have destroyed up to 90 percent of Madagascar's natural ecology.

And zoos like this one are becoming the best chance many species, like the lemur, have of surviving.