Ring- Tailed Lemurs are the most well-known of the 100 + species alive today due to their distinctive long black and white stripy tails.
Lemurs are a type of prosimian, meaning they are primates that evolved before monkeys and apes. Unlike most other lemurs and primates, Ring-Tails are primarily terrestrial spending about half of their time on the ground foraging for food. This is where their tails come in useful often using them as flagpoles to keep an eye on the rest of their group.
Their tails are also used for a slightly more unusual purpose, stink fighting. Males have spurs on the inside of their wrists near a scent gland which they will use to rub the offensive odour through their tails before wafting it at competitors. Despite the male – male competition it is the females who will head up the group of around 30, with dominant females having preferential access to food and choice of whom to mate with.
Females usually give birth to their first baby when they are three years old, and usually once a year every year after that. Gestation lasts about 16 weeks after which mothers will give birth to one or two offspring depending on how much food is available. Initially, infants cling to their mothers’ bellies until approximately two weeks when they can be seen riding jockey-style on their mother’s backs. Infants begin sampling solid food after about a week and will become increasingly independent after about a month. Females spend their whole lives in their birth group with males changing groups when they reach sexual maturity.
IUCN Red List status: Endangered
Despite the large range and flexibility of this species, population density is very low and is restricted to isolated fragments. There is a suspected population reduction of ≥50% in this species over a three generation. Causes of this reduction (which have not ceased) include continuing decline in area, extent and quality of habitat, and exploitation through unsustainable levels of hunting. Based on these premises, the species is listed as Endangered.
