Lemurs

Alex Re (00:00): Hello, welcome to On Wildlife. I'm your host Alex Re. On this podcast, we bring the wild to you. We take you on a journey into the life of a different animal every week, and I guarantee you, you're going to come out of here knowing more about your favorite animal than you did before. This week we're going to take a look at a species that you can only find on specific islands off the coast of Africa, but even though they're not widely spread throughout the world, you've probably heard about them in TV shows and movies or even seen them in zoos. So get ready to climb because we're heading to the trees of Madagascar to talk about lemurs.

(00:55): All true lemurs are prosimian primates. This means that they evolved before monkeys and apes. They're also endemic to Madagascar and the com islands, so they're native to only those areas and nowhere else in the world. Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world and is one of the largest biodiversity hotspots on earth. Some of the lemurs on the com islands were actually introduced there as a result of human activity. Lemurs live in all sorts of habitats, including rainforests, deciduous forests, spiny forests that have desert-like vegetation, mountains, and wetlands. They're also are boreal, so they spend most of their time in trees. The word lemur stems from Latin and it means spirits of the dead. The name refers to their silent movements throughout their environment. All true lemurs belong to the family lemur a day, but there are other families that we would also classify as lemurs, just not true lemurs.

(01:58): Other types of lemurs are SKAs injuries and eye eyes. Lemur a day is just one of eight families that make up the super family. Leia. Only five families have members that are still alive today, and there are estimated to be over a hundred species of lemurs. Unfortunately, they're considered one of the most endangered groups of animals on the planet because of their small habitat range, and we're going to talk about that later on in the episode. Their faces are said to be fox like and they have bodies like monkeys and lemurs come in all different shapes and sizes. The smallest lemur is Madam Bert's mouse lemur, which only grows to about three and a half inches long. A family of mouse lemurs with two or three pups could fit in the palm of your hand. The largest lemur is the injury and they can grow to be almost 30 inches long, and these measurements exclude their tail.

(02:57): While the injury is the largest living lemur at around 20 pounds, some specimens have been found that belonged to extinct lemurs weighing 190 pounds. The largest extinct lemur was estimated to be the size of a gorilla, and the specimens that were found are called sub fossils. Sub fossils are fossils that aren't old enough to be considered true fossils because they haven't fully fossilized and they still have original bone tissue. They're usually from around 50,000 years ago or younger. Lemurs are not as intelligent as monkeys, but they have a better sense of smell. They have wet noses, which is unique among all other primate groups, and it makes them really good at smelling things. Their noses secrete a mucus to stay wet, and this wetness allows the noses to absorb scents better. You'll also notice that they have really large eyes, so you would think that they have great eyesight, but they actually can't see as well as us or monkeys they can't even see in color very well.

(04:02): Where their eyesight does come in handy is at night, which is beneficial for them because many species of lemur are nocturnal because their eyes are so large, they allow more light to be taken in at one time, which gives them the ability to see really well in the dark. Lemurs are also one of the few primates that can have blue eyes. They can have a variety of different fur colorations as well with many having red, gray, brown, black or white fur. Some may have dark rings around their eyes or patches on the tops of their heads too. One of the most well-known lemur species is the ring tailed lemur whose tail has that characteristic black and white ringed pattern. Some lemur species have really long tails as well. Sometimes their tails are even longer than their bodies, their tails, which means that they can't use them to grasp objects in their environment like some monkeys can and other species don't have tails at all.

(05:05): The injury is a species that has no tail and instead just has a stub where the tail should be. Lemurs are the oldest living group of primates in the world. The first lemurs roamed the earth around 70 million years ago. That means some lemurs walked alongside the dinosaurs in Africa before moving their way over to Madagascar around 65 million years ago. But how did they get from Africa to an island? In the middle of the ocean? Scientists believed that they tagged along on floating vegetation that took them across the Indian ocean to Madagascar where they would evolve and diversify over the course of tens of millions of years. Okay, let's talk about their diet right after the break. This week, I want to give a shout out to Ari from Texas. His favorite animal is a tiger. Did you know that every tiger has its own unique pattern of stripes so no two tigers have the same pattern. If you want me to give you a shout out on the podcast, send an email to on wildlife dot podcast@gmail.com telling me your first name, where you're from and your favorite animal.

(06:35): Now back to the episode. The diet of lemurs varies by the species, but most of them are either herbivores or omnivores. Smaller lemurs eat fruit, sap and small insects and larger species are usually herbivores that will eat fruit, leaves, bark, and flowers. Some species will even eat small birds and their eggs. Lemurs have a lot of options when it comes to food during madagascar's wet season, but during the dry season, it's a lot more difficult to find something to eat to survive. During these times of lower food availability, lemurs will eat a lot of food to build up fat reserves or they can lower their metabolism to expend less energy. Some will resort to eating more meat during the dry season too. Lemurs can also enter excavation and they're one of the few animals on earth that can do this. Estimation is a phase where animals go dormant for short periods of time, but it's different than hibernation.

(07:37): It's marked by short periods of dormancy where the body temperature drops below 32 degrees Celsius, but this lasts for a day at most. The only lemur to truly hibernate is the fat tailed dwarf lemur, which stores fat in its tail. For the dry season during hibernation, up to 40% of this lemurs body weight is carried in its tail. Many lemurs are opportunistic eaters, but some can be a bit pickier when it comes to choosing food sources. Woolly lemurs often choose to eat the younger leaves of plants rather than the older ones, and there's a few reasons why they would do this. Younger leaves have more nutritional value, are less toxic and are not as tough on the teeth as older leaves are. Let's talk about a few species that have really specialized diets. The eye eye is a strange species of lemur on its own and they find their food in a special way.

(08:34): Eye eyes are insectivore, so they mainly eat insects, but they'll also eat plant material if they have to catch insects, eye eyes will use their teeth to gnaw holes in tree bark. Their teeth are kind of like beaver teeth because they never stop growing and after making a hole in the tree, eye eyes can use long middle fingers to grab grubs and other insects out of the hole. Their middle fingers sit on a ball and socket joint just like our hips and shoulders, meaning that the finger can rotate a full 360 degrees ring-tailed lemurs choose to eat herbs, which is rare among lemur species and golden bamboo lemurs like to eat bamboo, which is often too dangerous for other lemur species because it has a lot of cyanide in it. The average adult bamboo lemur can eat 18 ounces of bamboo in a day for animals of their size.

(09:31): This amount of bamboo has up to 12 times the lethal dose of cyanide. By having a flexible diet, lemurs are able to avoid some of the effects of deforestation by humans, which has enabled them to survive the impact of us. Lemurs also have a really interesting relationship with millipedes. If they get parasites, they'll sometimes consume them. The millipedes contain a toxin that doesn't harm the lemurs significantly, but it will kill any parasites living in their guts, but some millipedes use the lemurs more for fun than for function. Black lemurs won't eat a millipede, but they'll bite them and drop them to the ground when they're bitten. The millipede spray a toxin at the lemur, but this doesn't hurt them. Instead, it gets them high as if they were on drugs. They'll also rub the toxin on their fur, which acts as kind of like a bug spray.

(10:27): The lemur mating season relies on the time of year and the amount of food that's available. Female lemurs may only be fertile for a few days every year, which is a problem for their populations because they're on the decline. Larger species of lemurs have one pop at a time, and smaller species can have between two and six. When baby lemurs are born, they're weak and vulnerable, relying on their mothers for survival. They drink milk until their first molar appears. Then they can go out and forage on their own. This usually coincides during the time that the most food is available and mother lemurs hold their pups to their chests until they can safely move to their back and hold on their own. About half of all lemur pups will die before becoming independent depending on the species, lemurs can live between 15 and 20 years in the wild.

(11:23): The oldest living lemur in captivity is disputed, but a brown lemur named Bella at the aisle of White Zoo lived to see 38 years old and a ring-tailed lemur named Stumpy celebrated his 36th birthday at the five Sister Zoo in Scotland just a few months ago, and there were also a lot of captive breeding programs to help increase lemur populations throughout the world. Lemurs are very docile creatures and some species in groups of up to 10 or more individuals. A group of lemurs is called a conspiracy. The size of their groups depends on food availability. Groups are smaller when there's less food around because it allows for every individual to get their fair share to stay healthy. Lemur groups are made up of a dominant female who controls the rest of the family group. While the group has an alpha female, the males are usually larger.

(12:22): The core of the conspiracy is made of related females. They're offspring and males that came in from other groups. Some orphaned juvenile lemurs from neighboring groups may also be adopted by other groups. Conspiracies are very tight knit and they engage in social grooming, which helps to strengthen bonds between each other. Social grooming occurs when a lemur will help clean or maintain another lemurs appearance. They clean debris off the lemur and can remove parasites or other harmful pests from their fur. Lemurs also have a kind of second tongue called a sub lingua. It's found underneath their actual tongue and it acts as a way to get hair out of their teeth after they groom themselves or others. The status of a lemur is identifiable by the behavior they exhibit in their groups. Females will act more aggressively towards group members of lower statuses and dominant males usually exhibit a little swagger towards other males. Subordinate members of the group often stay in the back of the groups when they're on the move and they'll lower their heads and tails to show submission. We'll learn about some more lemur behaviors after our last break time. For today's trivia question, where would you find a penguin? The North Pole, south pole, or both?

(14:06): The answer is the south pole.

(14:17): An interesting thing about lemurs is that they all have different personalities with some being shy and others being very bold. They use different methods to communicate various messages to other individuals around the environment. The injury will make singing sounds to mark their territories and alert other individuals not to encroach on their territory. They have 15 different kinds of calls they can make. While sound is an important mode of communication, scent plays a huge role as well. Ring-tailed lemurs have scent glands on different parts of their body, like their wrists and chest. They mark their territories with these scent glands and males can engage in stink fights with other males. Basically, they rub the secretions of their scent glands on their tail. Then they'll start waving their tails in the air and doing handstands. This helps to spread their scent around the area. The stink fights only end when one of the males gives up and leaves the battle.

(15:18): Lemurs will oftentimes huddle together in groups either for warmth or to promote more grooming. They choose territories based on distance to water and larger trees. Most of their territories are less than a 10th of a square mile in size because they don't really need large ranges. The only time their ranges get larger is when the lemurs are living in areas with fewer resources. Usually when there are predators or intruders, the females will be the first line of defense, and some males may join in too. Their anti predator behaviors involve sounding off alarm calls and using their numbers to m attackers. For locomotion, lemurs usually walk on four legs, but they'll occasionally just walk by petally on two their tails help them keep their balance, which is especially important when they're high up in trees. Lemurs are very important to the food webs of their ecosystems.

(16:16): They're prey for different animals like snakes, birds of prey and fossas, but unfortunately, many individuals are also killed by domestic dogs and cats that have been let loose. Because lemurs eat different fruits and plants, they're also great seed dispersers seeds and pollen can get caught in the lemurs fur or the seeds can pass through their digestive system. Many of the plants and trees that are native to Madagascar rely on lemurs to spread their seeds throughout the island. The malagasy people protect lemurs because they help the forests grow and the local people depend on the forests for lumber and other resources. Lemurs also boost ecotourism, which helps the economy despite some people looking out for lemurs. There are also other people who are harming lemur populations. Their habitats have been deteriorating as a result of illegal logging and clearings made for agriculture and mining, and some species of lemurs are just misunderstood.

(17:21): No species is more misunderstood than the eye eye. The Malagasy people are fearful of eye eyes because they're believed to be bad omens kind of like a black cat. Eye eyes are killed on site because people believe that they can curse you just by pointing their long finger at you. It's also said that they sneak into homes and pick at the hearts of sleeping people and because of habitat loss and people misunderstanding them, lemurs are some of the most endangered species in the world. Around 98% of lemur species are endangered. There are only about 2000 ring-tailed lemurs left in the world, and there are only 250 mature silky cephas left. If you want to help lemurs, you should check out the Duke Lemur Center, lemur Conservation Foundation and the Lemur Conservation Network. Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with me as we explored the world of lemurs. You can find the sources that we use for this podcast and links to organizations that we reference at onwildlife.org. You can also email us with any questions at On Wildlife dot podcast@gmail.com, and you could follow us on Instagram at On Wildlife or on TikTok at wildlife. Don't forget to tune in next Wednesday for another awesome episode, and that's On Wildlife

Jess Avellino (18:54): You've Been listening to On Wildlife with Alex Re. On Wildlife provides general educational information on various topics as a public service, which should not be construed as professional financial, real estate tax, or legal advice. These are our personal opinions only. Please refer to our full disclaimer policy on our website for full details.