St. Louis Zoo: Lesser Primate House

 The Lesser Primate House at the St. Louis Zoo was built around the same time as the Herpetarium.  Like the Herpetarium, the first thing you see when entering is a beautiful atrium.  The interior has very open spaces for guests and 10 interior habitats of various sizes.  The largest house the larger primates, or those with greater numbers.  There were Black and White Ruffed Lemurs, Ring-tailed Lemurs, Coquerel's Sifaka, Geoffroy's Marmosets, Black & White Colobus, White-faced Saki, and Allen's Swamp Monkeys.  

Outside is a huge playground made to look like a primate habitat for children and on the far side of that a holding building with more primates and three exterior habitats.  After leaving the interior space, we got to see the Francois Langurs come out.  They went into the largest which encompassed a mature sycamore tree.  Everywhere the habitats were larger than any similar ones I've seen at other zoos.

Habitat for a pair of Black & White Ruffed Lemurs.

BLACK & WHITE RUFFED LEMUR

GEOFFROY'S MARMOSET

Black & White Colobus Habitat.  A colony of eight resided there.

BLACK & WHITE COLOBUS

RING-TAILED LEMUR

Allen's Swamp Monkey Habitat

ALLEN'S SWAMP MONKEY

WHITE-FACED SAKI

Outside the Small Primate House was this statue of George Philip Vierheller (1882 - 1966) with the inscription "The first Director and devoted Builder of this Zoo."  His tenure ran from 1919 to 1962.

The largest of the three open exterior habitats.

FRANCOIS LANGUR