DURHAM, N.C., Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The lovable lemur who starred in the PBS show Zoboomafoo has died of kidney failure at age 20.
Jovian, a much-loved Coquerel's sifaka, died at his home at the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, N.C. according to an obituary.
Jovian was known to children around the world as the leaping, prancing otherworldly Zoboomafoo, star of the PBS show of the same name. Most of the time on the show Zoboomafoo was played by a lemur puppet. But hosts, brothers Martin and Chris Kratt, wanted live footage of a real lemur bounding about and their search for a star led them to Jovian.
"He was great to work with," Martin Kratt, a 1989 Duke graduate who had volunteered at the Lemur Center as a student, told the center. "He'd jump in through the window and we'd feed him mangoes or garbanzo beans. Sometimes he'd grab our noses with those soft sifaka hands."
Jovian starred on the show from 1999 to 2001.
Jovian was born at the Duke Lemur Center in the spring of 1994 to parents Flavia and Nigel.
According to the Lemur Center obit, Jovian is survived by: his mate Pia and their family group, consisting of his six-year-old son Conrad, two-year-old son Ferdinand and ten-month-old daughter Gertrude. Jovian also has three grown offspring who left his group for breeding but remain at the Duke Lemur Center, Matilda, Gisela and Charlie. A fourth grown daughter, Wilhelmina lives at the Cincinnatti Zoo. Wilhelmina provided Jovian with his first four grandkids, and currently his daughter-in-law Pompeia, Charlie's partner, is pregnant with grandkids number five and six. He is also survived by a brother, Julian, who is alive and well at age 22.
