The Catta lemur and ring-tailed lemur is the only species within the monotypic genus Lemur and, like other lemurs, are found only in Madagascar. It is known locally as hira or maky and inhabits gallery forests to spiny scrub in the southern regions of the island
Catta Lemur
L. catta
Species
L. catta
Order
Primates
Family
Lemuridae
Danger of Extinction
Amenazada (en peligro crítico)
Features
It is omnivorous and the most terrestrial of lemurs; daytime behavior is active exclusively during daylight hours.
Spend 33% of their time on land, making it the most terrestrial of all lemurs.
It is a very social species living in groups of up to thirty individuals in the social domain females manifests a trait common among lemurs. To keep warm and reaffirm social bonds groups huddle together, forming a “ball of lemurs’; like sun sitting upright ventral side, white skin and thinner towards the sun
The size of the groups, their action area and the population density varies depending on the region and the availability of food. The groups usually consist of between six twenty-five individuals, although there have been over thirty groups and the average is thirteen to fifteen individuals.
Customs, food and habitat:
Its territory or area of action varies between 6 and 35 hectares. Groups can hold territory but usual overlapping thereof. When meetings are produced in nature are generally hostile. A group usually occupy the same area of their territory for three or four days before moving.
As in the case of most socially lemurs females dominate males in all situations, even when the priority of feed. The domain is asserted lunging, chasing, slapping, grabbing and biting.
Young females do not always inherit the rank of their mother and the young males leave the group between three and five years old.
Customs:
Like other lemurs, the sense of smell is particularly important to them and mark their territory with scent glands.
The males have a unique marking behavior oloroso called ‘marking Ram “and engaged in a kind of” stinking struggles “rubbing his tail with their scent glands wrists and then whipping towards male opponents.
Curiosities
It is one of the most vocal primates using numerous calls vocalizations as group cohesion and alarm.
It has been shown experimentally that these lemurs despite not having a large brain (compared to simiformes primates) can organize sequences, understand basic arithmetic operations and preferentially select tools based on their functional properties.