From: jfurr@nyx.cs.du.edu (JKF)
Subject: Re: Joey the Lemur (transcript, kinda long)
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Keywords: Lemurs, Joey the Lemur, King Dinosaur, spam, cockroach, aerosol
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 20:59:40 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.164243.11865@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> franklir@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Ryan J Franklin ) writes:
>In article <1992Dec15.041343.17227@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jfurr@nyx.cs.du.edu (JKF) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec10.091345.13310@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> franklir@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Ryan J Franklin ) writes:
>>>
>>>Wonderful species, nice opposable thumbs, but absolutely NO mechanical
>>>aptitude whatsoever.  Definitely not the auto repairmen of the primate
>>>world.
>> 
>>It comes from living in the trees.  Honda Civics don't work well in an
>>arboreal environment...
>
>On the other hand, well over 80% of the lemur population can get a job
>as a locksmith or as a window washer, according to a recent article in
>Barron's.  This brings them up to #3 on the "Most in Demand" list for the
>major primate families.  Unfortunately, few lemurs appear to want those 
>jobs, perhaps because they can get all the food they need from nearby
>vending machines and/or used record stores.

Locksmithing would appeal to Lemurs if they stopped to think about it
since a locksmith-trained Lemur would be hell on wheels in the vending
machine world.  Who'd need being able to wriggle into the machine if you
could just pop it open and swipe _everything_ in one swell foop?

Window washing, on the other hand, does not appeal to the Lemurs of my
acquaintance.  Neither Rudolpho nor Nigel expressed any interest in
washing windows.  They see windows as necessary evils, shutting out the
natural breezes but keeping in the warmth here in countries that aren't
warm year-round.

Windows.  That reminds of me of the time Vance Kochenderfer had to call
Lemur-B-Gon when a bunch of the Lemurs were keeping him awake at night
beating on his windows trying to get him to let them in.  He knew better
than to do that, as they would just have come inside and made even more
noise playing with the kitchen appliances and asking him for his credit
card number and expiration date so they could order cubic zirconium
jewelry off QVC and the Home Shopping Network.  Fortunately, Lemur-B-Gon
came quickly and took care of the situation by bribing the Lemurs into the
back of a closed van with some Ben 'n' Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream
(it's banana icecream with chocolate chunks).  The Lemurs were then taken
over to Newman Library and released into the photocopier area where they
busied themselves making photocopies of their body parts.

>>>Incidentally, can anyone tell me if a lemur's tail is partially prehensile?
>>
>>As far as I can tell from this book I checked out called "Lemurs And You,"
>>lemur tails are not prehensile.  Instead they use their little paws to
>>cling to things that need clinging to... ceiling lamps, Cindy Crawford,
>>Twinkies, etc...
>
>Hm.  Then, apart from looking really nice, what purpose do their tails 
>serve?  They seem to be rather inconvenient whilst leeming, as I mentioned
>before, and even something as simple as being able to use it as a way of
>stabilizing themselves when climbing or clinging would go a long way towards
>explaining this prosimian puzzle.  

I've got this neat book here called "Lemurs of Madagascar and the Comoros:
The IUCN Red Data Book," put out by the World Conversation Union, that
lists and details the Lemurs of families Cheirogaleidae, Megaladapidae,
Lemuridae, Indriidae, and Daubentoniidae.  None of them are detailed as
having prehensile tails, not even the Ring-Tailed Lemur.  All of them are
cute, however -- the book has lots of pictures.
Newsgroups: alt.fan.lemurs