Our new female – Nina

You might have wondering what was happening in our captive management in past few months. Since we got our first tarsier, Julius and after monitoring his adjustment to the new conditions, we immediately started careful searching for a female. As we informed you a few times, the Philippine tarsiers are very sensitive to captive environment, so our next tarsier had to be chosen very carefully. Thus, in past few months we spent a lot of evenings in the forest. And, finally, we can tell a result… Let us introduce Nina!

She is a beautiful tarsier captured in a calm secondary forest in Bilar. Nina is an adult female with an average weight for the species, as when she arrived to our enclosure she had 114 g. Her behaviour was timid at the beginning, but now she is fully expressing her nature in a long and extremely quick leaps and being interested in every novelty. She started using more and more space available in her enclosure, showing signs of progressive adaptation process. Similarly to Julius, Nina is offered with a variety of food ranging from crickets, mealworms, katydids, prey mantids, beetles, spiders and others. So far her favourite part of the diet are prey mantids, which she always picks up first and never resist when they are in her vicinity. Nina is also very fond of mealworms, sometimes feeding on few of them in row.

The name which our second tarsier received is a very beautiful female name in Slavic countries. What is more, in one language in the world, Swahili, “Nina” means “mother”, which we do hope, our female become soon!

Therefore, we can finally state, our breeding centre has first pair of tarsiers. Due to solitary nature of the species, Julius and Nina are placed in separate enclosures as for now, and they have no visual contact. It will change soon, as mating season is approaching. Keep your fingers crossed for our first breeding attempt!

Text and photo: Filip Wojciechowski