Woman Hears Scratching At Her Door, Opens It And Gets Attacked By A Lemur [Video]
When many people hear the word lemur, they can’t help but think of King Julien from the popular movie franchise Madagascar. King Ringtail Julien XIII, the large-eyed “Lord of the Lemurs,” won plenty of fans with his version of the “I Like To Move It, Move It” song. King Julien sang and danced with a cute accent and noted how he liked physically fit people who moved their bodies in a nice, sweet and sassy manner.
That cartoon version of a funny lemur who ruled over a huge colony of lemurs gave viewers the notion that lemurs could be sweet and kind with their huge eyes — and the mistaken notion that lemurs would make good house pets. One 21-year-old Florida woman became the victim of a vicious lemur attack when she simply opened her door in Miami after hearing scratching sounds on the door.
As seen in the attached video from CBS Miami, Victoria Valledor thought it was just a plant that had fallen over outside the front door. Victoria assumed it was the leaves from the plant scratching at her door, not a potentially deadly lemur waiting to pounce on Victoria. Valledor’s sister took photos of the lemur as the wild animal sat on top of the garbage cans outside of their house on Monday.
Located at SW 56th Terrace and 140th Place, the home is positioned in an area where people are allowed to have lemurs if they have a license.
According to CBS Miami, Victoria opened the door, expecting to pick up a plant that had toppled over — but instead, found herself running away from a lemur that began chasing her down the street. Victoria’s quick-thinking grandmother — Celia Rodon — went off to find a banana that she thought would attract the lemur and distract the animal from her granddaughter.
Apparently the banana was only a temporary distraction to the lemur, because the lemur once again attacked Victoria, leaving scratches and cuts over the victim’s arms. In the attached video, the damage that the lemur left to Victoria’s arms can be seen in photos taken right after the attack.
Isabella Valledor described what it was like to witness a lemur attack her sister.
“My 21-year-old sister was leaving the house when the lemur jumped on her and bit her so she had to call 911 and the lemur started chasing her around and then when 911 came the lemur started chasing them around too.”
Ultimately, two authoritative divisions were able to help get the lemur under control. The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue squad showed up to help extract the lemur — along with Lorenzo Veloz with FWC’s captive wildlife division. Veloz described what it took to finally get the lemur away from the crime scene.
“Through tricks and practice and a lot of training they were able to coax it to a kennel and they removed the lemur from the scene. Due to the area where we are, there are people licensed to have these lemurs so now it’s under investigation.
While the authorities don’t know where that particular lemur came from, the public has been warned with this latest attack to use caution around lemurs.
One Facebook video on the page of Malagasy ve ianao, uploaded about 3 months ago, went completely viral and swelled to more than 20 million views. The video, titled “Only in Madagascar,” shows a lemur who demands to have the animal’s back rubbed. When kids in the video stop scratching the lemur’s back, the animal looks at them and points to the area where the lemur wants more back-scratching.
“So no need to explain anymore why we call it ‘Chief.'”
In two of the above photos, Belgium’s Queen Mathilde can be seen playing with a lemur, along with family.
[Photo by Michel Gouverneur/AP Images]
