Background

Lifestyle
Like most lemurs, ring-tails are most active during the daytime. Unlike others, however, they spend more time on the ground than in trees. Ring-tailed lemur groups, which number from 3 to 25 individuals, consist of a mix of adult females and males, plus juveniles. The female dominate the group, earning the best feeding and sleeping spots and generally keeping the others in their place. She is also responsible for the group’s defense. Female lemurs remain with the group they were born into, while males transfer to different groups.

Ring-tail groups live within a home range, which changes seasonally depending on the availability of food. To defend their territory, females mark trees with genital smears and males use a wrist gland to gouge their scent into saplings. Territories average 15 to 37 acres, and different groups’ home ranges sometimes overlap.

Food
The ring-tailed lemur eats primarily fruits, leaves, flowers, herbs, bark, and sap. Occasionally, it will dine on insects. With their special footpads, ring-tails move around their forested-desert home (the “spiny forest”) like expert acrobats, plucking and eating the thorny plants’ tiny leaves.

Life Cycle
A ring-tailed lemur mother gives birth to one or two young between August and October, when the rainy season begins. Newborns ride on their mother’s belly for the first two weeks, then graduate to riding on her back. It takes about two years for ring-tailed lemurs to reach adulthood. Lemurs, like most primates, are fairly long-lived. They have been recorded for up to 20 years in the wild and can live more than 35 years in zoos.

Some of My Neighbors
Brown Lemurs, Boa Constrictors, Eagles, Hawks, Fossas

Population Status & Threats
The ring-tailed lemur is classified as Vulnerable and faces a high risk of extinction due to hunting and habitat loss. Slash-and-burn agriculture, overgrazing by livestock, and the cutting of trees for charcoal production all contribute to the shrinking of the ring-tail’s forested home.

= = =comunication= Ring-tailed lemurs have 28 distinct call types, 22 of which are used by adults, six of which are particular to infants ( Macedonia 1993). Some predominant vocalizations include affiliative vocalizations such as "moans," contact calls used in conditions of low or moderate arousal, "meows," heard as contact calls in situations of moderate arousal or excitement and which are thought to increase group cohesion, and "wails" which are the highest arousal contact calls and are heard when a group member is separated from the social group. "Howls" are given only by non-infant males and are used to contact and advertise presence of the group to other groups in the area and can be heard between 750 and 1000 m (.466 and .621 mi), "purrs" are heard during grooming and thought to be a sign of contentment, and "chirps" are given to elicit group movement from one location to another (Jolly 1966; Macedonia 1993). Agonistic vocalizations include "yips," given by subordinate animals when approaching or when approached by a dominate individual, "squeals" are given by males during displays to assert status over other males or when soliciting females, and "chutters," given when a dominant individual lunges at a subordinate individual ( Macedonia 1993). Ring-tailed lemurs also have specialized antipredator vocalizations that elicit responses from the rest of the group when they are given. For example, "gulps" are heard when a carnivore, raptor, or rapidly moving human are perceived and are generalized group alert vocalizations, "shrieks" are heard in response to large, low-flying birds, "clicks" are heard in situations of curiosity but wariness, and "yaps" are heard during mobbing of mammalian predators