The largest family of lemurs includes the best-known lemur species: the ring-tailed lemur. The ring-tailed lemur is recognizable by its black-and-white-banded tail, much like that of a raccoon, and is found in the dry and deciduous parts of Southwestern Madagascar. Unlike other lemurs, the ring-tailed lemur spends a good portion of its time on the ground.
Bamboo Lemurs
One of the most recently discovered (by Western science) large mammal species is the golden bamboo lemur (Hapalemur aureus), which was found on an expedition searching for the greater bamboo lemur (H. simius), which was believed to be extinct. The last known (at the time) greater bamboo lemur specimen died in captivity in the mid 1970s, and in 1986 an expedition was arranged to confirm that the species was extinct. The expedition found a previously undescribed bamboo-eating lemur with reddish gold fur, which was later named the golden bamboo lemur. Interestingly, Madagascar's forests support a third species of bamboo-eating lemur, the gentle bamboo lemur (H. griseus). These three species coexist by having specialized bamboo-feeding habits. The golden bamboo lemur, apparently tolerant of high concentrations of cyanide, eats the cyanide containing leaf bases, shoots, and piths of new-growth giant bamboo. The amount of cyanide consumed daily by this species is enough to kill three men. The greater bamboo lemur eats the mature pith of the same bamboo, while the gentle bamboo lemur eats the leaves of another bamboo species.
Almost all pictures on this site were taken with a Konica Minolta
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