Rare blue-eyed lemur

A 2-month-old, critically endangered lemur with turquoise eyes is being hand-reared at La Palmyre Zoo in France.

The little girl is one of only nine blue-eyed lemurs to be born in the captive European Breeding Program since 2000, and the first to be born in this zoo.

Officials at La Palmyre say she was born on April 9, but they waited to share the news because of their concerns about her health. The newborn was weak at first and didn’t cling well to her mother, so her keepers decided to separate her from her mom and dad.

The baby was placed in an incubator and keepers fed her by hand. Her parents were moved to an area where they could see the baby through a nursery window, in the hopes of facilitating a reunion later.

The staff’s main concern was that having too much human contact would make it difficult to pair the baby with her parents again.

Today, the baby is “doing well and is now very active,” the zoo said in a statement. The family is nearly back together, with the baby in a protective cage where she can still have contact with her mom and dad.

Rare blue-eyed lemur