lemur

October the 27th is World Lemur Day. A day to celebrate the most endangered clade of mammals on the planet.

Did you know:

Lemurs are found exclusively on the island of Madagascar (and some tiny offshore islands)
There are over 100 different species of lemur, ranging in size from the dwarf mouse lemur (30 g) to the indri (up to 9.5 kg).
Of those species, a shocking 90% are endangered, many critically.
Lemurs are prosimians, which translates as “before monkey” and are descended from a common ancestor. It is believed this ancestor was carried over to Madagascar on debris, and evolved to fill a variety of different niches.
The aye-aye, possibly one of the strangest mammals in the world, was described as having “… the ears of a bat, the tail of a fox, the teeth of a beaver, the fur of a microwaved cat and the hands of a witch…” (from John Cleese’s “In the Wild”). Its middle finger is not actually elongated, but very, very thin, allowing it to probe into crevices to extract delicious bugs and grubs.
Most lemur species are vegetarian, with the eastern sifaka species requiring such a diverse array of foliage that they rarely survive (and have not yet flourished) in captivity.
The west coast of Madagascar is much drier, and the lemur species found there tend to somewhat more adaptable with their diet.
John Cleese loves lemurs – and has a species of avahi (woolly lemur) named after him: Avahi cleesei
The lemur “poster boy”, the ring-tailed lemur, is one of the more generalised species. It thrives in zoos, and spends more time on the ground than other species. However, wild populations have suffered a massive decline in recent years.
The black lemurs have been filmed biting millipedes, which causes them to secrete a chemical that not only acts as a natural insecticide, but is also a narcotic.
Sclater’s black lemur is the only non-human primate with blue eyes.
The bamboo lemur regularly consumes high qualities of cyanide.