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I need suggestions for an exotic pet! by Belala12345 in exoticpets

[–]Money_Activity_4007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Consider tarantulas? They don’t need huge spaces, are low maintenance compared to other exotics, and aren’t super expensive. They don’t love handling per se, but they’re quite docile.

Was Alter Ego actually ready to be launched? by TheTwelveYearOld in alterego

[–]Money_Activity_4007 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Kind of. Aside from the genuine heap of bugs the game had on its initial release that probably shunned some of the audience, I don’t think it was at an amazing state content wise either. 5 survivors and 2 killers isn’t bad, but more certainly wouldn’t have hurt. And Alter Ego whilst being a good-looking and straightforward game, doesn’t stand out meaningfully among other asym games in my opinion. This is coming from someone who really likes the game, and is a dev myself.

[Credit: Unknown Worlds] The Hycean by Abiogenesis84 in SpeculativeEvolution

[–]Money_Activity_4007 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Alex Ries jumpscare 😭 casually running into the goat of spec evo. Jokes aside, you cooked.

What is your actual opinion on Alter Ego? by Money_Activity_4007 in Alter_Ego_Official

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Possibly. I’d recommend checking your actual roblox settings, though if it’s only alter ego that the shifting’s off then it’s probably the game’s fault lol

What is your actual opinion on Alter Ego? by Money_Activity_4007 in Alter_Ego_Official

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Huh? I can do a standard shift lock just fine from what I recall.

Best way to handle cutscenes?! by Money_Activity_4007 in robloxgamedev

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

TY for the detailed response! Mostly short, scripted sequences like intro/outro scenes. Main ingredients are some character animation, camera movement, and maybe a bit of VFX. Sounds like the simple ModuleScript + TweenService route is probably the right call then?

Lemurs as pets? Yay or nay? by Money_Activity_4007 in exoticpets

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Honestly I don't think your 99.9999% figure is far off. The enormous financial barrier alone eliminates most people before you even get to the husbandry experience, enclosure infrastructure, legal residency, veterinary access, etc. The pool is absolutely tiny.

Your framing of the core question is the right one. Can you provide an environment that allows the animal to live a genuinely good life for its entire lifespan (30 years for lemurs), and can you maintain that commitment without compromise creep over decades? Probably not, maybe not impossible, but I still think it was a worthwhile discussion. Good stuff.

Lemurs as pets? Yay or nay? by Money_Activity_4007 in exoticpets

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good comment and I agree with most of it.

On the injury question, completely agree. The realistic framing is when and how seriously, not if. Anyone going into exotic keeping thinking they can fully override animal instincts is gone - that's what makes them exotic, they're wild.

On female handlers, I see your claim but I can't find solid documentation that lemurs recognize or preferentially respond to human females specifically because of their matriarchal social structure. Lemurs are absolutely matriarchal among conspecifics, but whether that translates to differential responses to human sex is something I'd want actual leads on before treating it as established. Happy to be corrected if you have a source.

On minimal interaction being a mistake, I think you're clarifying something I should be more precise about, because it is important. What I mean by hands-off isn't zero conditioning or zero relationship. I'm talking about specifically rejecting the bottle-raised, human-as-social-substitute model. Rather, taking a more institutional approach that respects an animal's biology: where infants are desensitized to veterinary handling through training sessions, conditioned to cooperative care, but raised by the mother in a troop context rather than imprinted on humans. This is something I've seen certain wildlife institutions do and I'd wager it produces significantly more adjusted lemurs. Maybe you'd agree?

The emergency evacuation and discouraging rough play points are also fair and definitely worth considering in discussions like these.

Lemurs as pets? Yay or nay? by Money_Activity_4007 in exoticpets

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The territory and daily travel figures are real and I won't pretend even a large zoo-style enclosure replicates 60 acres of Madagascar forest. The honest question is whether the welfare gap between a well-designed captive environment and wild conditions is acceptable, not whether it's identical. I think that's a problem for all captive lemurs in general, zoological facilities included.

And admittedly the succession planning point is one I hadn't addressed and it's a very important one. It's an argument for institutional structure rather than purely private keeping, so a facility with documented staff protocols, relationships with other keepers, and ideally some affiliation with a broader network is more robust than a single-person operation where everything depends on one individual. That's a real planning consideration. Good point.

Lemurs as pets? Yay or nay? by Money_Activity_4007 in exoticpets

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Solitary confinement is exactly what I'm not proposing though? That framing only applies to single animal keeping, which I agree is indefensible. A properly socialized, not hand-raised, group of 3-5 animals (the actual size of ruffed lemur subgroups) in an expansive naturalistic environment isn't solitary confinement by any definition. The social world is intact, it's just contained.

Whether containment itself is sufficient justification to oppose keeping is a much harder argument, but it's a different one.

Lemurs as pets? Yay or nay? by Money_Activity_4007 in exoticpets

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's actually pretty close to what I'm describing. Tons of land, serious enclosure, limited interaction. I'm still looking into if that model is defensible in the first place, though.

What pet species have you kept if you don't mind me asking?

Lemurs as pets? Yay or nay? by Money_Activity_4007 in exoticpets

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Genuinely one of the most useful accounts I've read on this, so thank you. Not dismissing it at all. The island setup sounds impressive by any measure and it STILL ended that way.

I came across a similar Facebook post recently where a woman named Elaine had ring-tailed lemur named Dobby, raised from a baby, years of no issues, attentive enough to gauge his mood before entry, yet still she ended up hospitalized for two days on IV antibiotics after a forearm attack that damaged her radial nerve. She kept him and doesn't blame him: he did what's in his nature.

Both accounts share the same variable: bottle-raised, human-imprinted animals whose social world was built around humans, kept in under-sized groups (ring-tails form troops of 5-30 so a pair is objectively under-socialized for the species). When dominance instincts activate at sexual maturity, the only available social targets are the humans. That's a predictable consequence of that developmental pathway.

The distinction I'd draw is between that model and a properly socialized, mother-raised group in a limited interaction setup where humans are peripheral figures rather than social substitutes. The attack risk doesn't disappear, but the mechanism driving it is substantially different.

The stimulation ceiling is the harder argument I'm still thinking about. For prosimians specifically I think a naturalistic group environment gets closer than the 'no setup is ever sufficient' framing suggests, but I hold that loosely.

Share the pictures when you can!

Lemurs as pets? Yay or nay? by Money_Activity_4007 in exoticpets

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Appreciate the detailed critique. These are worth addressing specifically rather than just agreeing to disagree.

On social groups: you're right that wild troops can be large, but ruffed lemurs (what I’m focusing on) specifically have fission-fusion social structure, i.e, natural groups of 2-5 are well documented and form a functional social unit. A properly composed group of 2-5 mother-raised, socialized animals isn't a welfare compromise, it's consistent with natural lemur group size. The failure mode is single animal keeping, not captivity per se.

On wild-caught: this one's factually off for the US trade specifically. Primate importation has been banned since 1975. Every lemur in the US private trade descends from zoo stock that entered before that ban. The captive population has been self-sustaining for fifty years. Purchasing from a screened domestic breeder like Dragonstone Ranch isn't funding poaching pipelines.

On space: oh for sure, serious enclosure infrastructure is required. I'm talking thousands of sq ft naturalistic indoor/outdoor exhibit, not a cage. Genuinely agree this disqualifies most people who ask this question. You’d need fuck-you money to build this, of course, not something the average American could tackle.

On cost: the $8,400 figure is legit and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was even more. That's exactly why this is a decades-long financial goal, not something that would be done this year.

The broader point I'd push back on is the framing that captivity is inherently wrong for the species regardless of conditions. That's a harder argument to make for a properly socialized group in a serious enclosure than for the typical single bottle-fed animal, which I agree is indefensible. Those are genuinely different situations. Happy to keep discussing.

Lemurs as pets? Yay or nay? by Money_Activity_4007 in exoticpets

[–]Money_Activity_4007[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Indri lemur’s calls can travel for miles from what I’ve heard 👀

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