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Lily

Male , 7 years old

About Lily

Lily was brought into our primate centre in Java, Indonesia in November 2013. Lily was approximately 6 months old and had been most likely orphaned at a very young age. He was one of 238 slow lorises confiscated by the forestry officials who found them packed into small crates by illegal wildlife traders.

More recently Lily has been under the weather and really needs your support. He is suffering from a skin complaint on his chest and stomach which is causing dampness and baldness. This is likely to be a result of his over-grooming. He has been placed in an enclosure behind the clinic to ensure regular supervision from staff. Once a week he has blood tests to try and discover the cause of his metabolic problems. 

Lily's Story

Lily was brought into our primate centre in Java, Indonesia in November 2013. He was one of 238 slow lorises confiscated by the forestry officials who found them packed into small crates by illegal wildlife traders. Some of them were babies that were too young to be separated from their mothers and had sadly died. Lily was approximately 6 months old and had been most likely orphaned at a very young age.

Luckily, Lily was in quite good health given the ordeal he had been through and his canine teeth appeared to be intact. Unfortunately, this was not the case for many of his friends, who had their teeth painfully clipped by traders in order to make them easier to handle.

Thankfully Lily survived the neglect of his youth, despite being less than a year old. Lily was initially thought to be a girl, hence his name ‘Lily’, but slow lorises do not show sexual dimorphism at a young age. Only when slow lorises have reached sexual maturity do the testicles grow to a visible size and it is then possible to determine the gender with certainty. It was not until April 2015 that the team could confirm that Lily was in fact, a boy!

Lily being bashful
Lily in the bushes

Lily was one of the healthiest slow lorises on arrival and this luckily continued. He quickly gained 100 grams and was feeding well on fruit and insects, as well as supplements to ensure he was given enough protein. He was moved into an enclosure with other young lorises, Lala, Lele and Lulu. They got on really well, playfully chasing each other around their enclosure and through the tunnels!

Lily and his friends had regular medical check-ups and were de-wormed where the team were very pleased with Lily’s general condition. However, he showed signs of a bacterial infection and on close inspection the vets could see a fracture in his upper right canine. It is likely that, although his teeth were not fully clipped, the traders had tried to clip them and damaged one tooth. Andrea, our vet volunteer from Columbia, carried out a dental extraction of the canine and reported that here recovered really well and there were no complications. Lily remained under treatment and was closely monitored to make sure he completely recovered from the operation and bacterial infection.

Lily in his feeding tray
Lily climbing a tree

Lily was really getting along well with the other slow lorises that he shared his enclosure with, sleeping during the day and having grooming sessions with them at night. He was slowly becoming more afraid of humans and starting to act a little aggressive towards them, which was a very positive sign if he is to stand a chance at being released back into the wild. The wild behaviours he was displaying were excellent progress for his rehabilitation prospects but not so good for his keepers when he tried to attack them!

One of his housemates called Lulu had also turned out to be male which did not come as too much of a surprise as they had recently been acting rather aggressive towards each other to a point where poor Lulu had a wound on his rear because Lily had bit him. Because of this tumultuous relationship, Lily had been showing stress related behaviours so he was introduced to a young female called Juraj who would hopefully help him to calm down. If their relationship worked out, they may end up being a perfect pair to be reintroduced into the wild together in the future.

A medical examination found that unfortunately his bottom left canines were infected and needed further treatment. An x-ray was carried out and it showed that his teeth had in fact been cut in early childhood which resulted in an infection. As his teeth grew, the infection grew also so it was decided that extraction was the best course of action to save Lily from future pain. The teeth were extracted by a veterinary dental specialist and Lily made a full recovery.

Lily climbing in his enclosure
Lily in his enclosure with blue backdrop