Ring-Tailed Lemurs
King Julien XIII, from the popular animated film Madagascar, is a ring-tailed lemur. In the real Madagascar however, females are dominant. The movie cartoon character should have been a queen, not a king!

Physical Description: Ring-tailed lemurs are mostly reddish-grey in colour with white undersides and ears. They have black rings around their eyes and distinctive black and white ringed tails (for which they were named). Ring-tailed lemurs have a black muzzle, much like a dog. Males and females do not differ in size: body length is 42.5cm on average. Their trademark tails are about 60cm long! Ring-tailed lemurs weigh between 2,207–2,213g. One special physical feature of males is a scent gland called a horny spur on the underside of each wrist. Ring-tailed lemurs also have a special set of lower teeth called a dental comb which is used for grooming.

Habitat: Ring-tailed lemurs are only found in a few forests in south and southwest Madagascar. They live in deciduous forest, gallery forest, rainforest, spiny bush and subalpine forest. Ringtails spend more time on the ground than any other lemur and travel approximately 1km each day. They are quadrupedal and have a unique way of holding their tails in a “question mark” shape as they walk. Home ranges vary from 0.1 to 0.35 km2. Ring-tailed lemurs living in dry habitats tend to be more spread out than those living in wet habitats. Predators include raptors, snakes, fossas and domestic cats, although it is not known how many ring-tailed lemurs are lost to predation.

Diet: Wild ring-tailed lemurs have a seasonal diet due to the different forest types they inhabit, as well as the changing rain patterns. Ring-tails are omnivores. They eat ripe fruit, leaves, flowers, exudates, insects, birds and even dirt! Ring-tailed lemurs rely on the tamarind tree in particular for both fruit and leaves. They get water from aloe plants, prickly pear cactuses and places where water collects naturally.

Life History: Gestation in ringtails is 135–145 days. Wild females tend to give birth to a single infant. Captive females are more likely than wild ones to have twins or triplets. Births occur every 1.2 years on average and in a given year 75%of a group’s females will have an infant. Wild births are seasonal, with most infants born in September when food tends to be more plentiful. Infant mortality varies between 37–80% depending on environmental conditions. Infants are carried ventrally (on the mother’s stomach) when they are first born. After a few days when they are stronger, they are carried dorsally (on the mother’s back).

After about 1 month they are only carried dorsally and other group members begin to care for the infant in addition to the mother. Infants begin to play with each other when they are about 1.5 months old. Weaning begins around 2 months of age.

By 4 months, the infant spends 85% of its time exploring away from the mother and barely nurses anymore. Lifespan in the wild is unknown, but estimated to be about 16 years. In captivity, ring-tailed lemurs can live as much as 10 years longer.

Associations: None, although the ring-tailed lemur shares its range with aye-ayes, brown lemurs, fat-tailed dwarf lemurs, greater dwarf lemurs, lesser bamboo lemurs, red-tailed sportive lemurs, white-footed sportive lemurs, ruffed lemurs and Verreaux’s sifakas.

Social Structure: Ring-tailed lemurs live in multi-male/multi-female groups that range in size anywhere from 4–35 individuals. If the group becomes too large, it splits in half, with dominant individuals pushing subordinate ones out. Females are dominant, so they remain in the group and males emigrate. There is usually one top female in the group. Daughters must compete for rank and do not simply inherit the rank of their mothers as in other primate species.

There is a hierarchy in males as well which is based on age and competition. There may be one, two or three top males in the group. The remaining males exist in the group’s periphery. Males transfer into new groups when they are 3–5 years old. Transfers often occur during the mating season. Males may transfer many times across their lifespan, although they will transfer less as they become older and more established.

Communication: Both males and females scent mark. Females only have scent glands in the anogenital region, whereas males have additional scent glands on their chests and wrists. Both sexes mark areas on the boundaries of their territory, especially in regions that overlap with other groups. These lemurs scent mark by standing on their hands and rubbing their genitals onto the object (e.g. tree or branch). Males have two very interesting scent marking behaviours. The first is called “spur marking” and involves the scent glands on their wrists.

The male will use its sharp nail or “spur” to make a cut into the tree to deposit its scent. Spur marking increases during the mating season. The second behaviour is known as a “stink fight” and involves males rubbing their tails against their chests and wrists. Once they are sufficiently stinky, they brandish their tails against another male, who may counterattack with his own stinky tail or simply run off. These stink fights can last up to an hour!

Ringtail vocalisations have been extensively studied. There are 28 distinct vocalisations including 6 used by infants. They emit contact calls, predator response calls and calls to facilitate group communication. Examples include “meows” (given during excitement), “purrs” (during grooming), “yips” (given by a subordinate animal to a dominant animal), and “yaps” (given when mammalian predators are mobbed by the group). These sounds seem as if they should belong to a cat or dog! Like cats and dogs, ring-tailed lemurs rely heavily on olfaction, or their sense of smell. They use olfactory cues to identify individuals as well as to denote their territory.

Rintailed lemurs also use postures as visual cues to communicate. These include the “threat stare” (declares dominance; may start a fight), “pulled-back lips” (submissive facial expression), “jump-fighting” (jumping around another individual on hind legs with arms outstretched) and the classic “stink fight”.

Mating: Ring-tailed lemurs become fully-grown around 3 years of age and begin mating between 2.5–4 years of age. Ring-tailed lemurs in captivity or very favourable environments may mature and begin mating earlier. Females are only sexually receptive for a day, maybe two, out of the entire year. This period of receptivity may last just 6 hours! All of the females in the group become sexually receptive more or less within the same time period.

The breeding season may last anywhere between about 1–3 weeks. Ring-tailed lemurs are not monogamous and may have several mates during the short breeding season. High-ranking males are usually the first to mate with females, although females may also choose more distantly related males instead. Both males and females may initiate mating.

Males will sniff the genitals of a female. This ends poorly if the female is not receptive, as she will become very aggressive. Aggression also occurs between males during the mating season over competition for females. Females solicit mating by approaching a male, then presenting their rumps and lifting their tails.

Other Behaviour: Ring-tailed lemurs enjoy the sun! They don’t “tan” and the skin under their fur is black. However, they do like to spend some time “sunning” by sitting on their back legs and turning their arms out so that the undersides are exposed to the sun. The exact function of this behaviour is unknown, but it may be involved in regulating body temperature. Ring-tailed lemurs often sit in the sun when temperatures are colder.

Conservation: Ring-tailed lemurs are classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN. This means that they are at high risk of extinction. The total number of wild ring-tailed lemurs is unknown but estimated to be 10,000 to 100,000. Madagascar is considered a conservation “hot spot” because of the high number of threatened species that can only be found on this island, which is roughly half the size of South Africa. Like many species in Madagascar, ring-tailed lemurs are severely threatened by habitat loss.

They need some forest cover to survive and do not do well in areas where the forest has grown back after a disturbance. Slash-and-burn agriculture and wood mining for fuel, construction, and industry are major contributors to forest loss. Ring-tailed lemurs are also hunted for food and kept as pets. They are protected to varying degrees in different reserves and in forest patches considered to be sacred by local people.

Ringtails do extremely well in captivity. There are approximately 2,000 of them in zoos and other breeding programs such as the Lemur Conservation Foundation (USA, www.lemurreserve.org) which could be used for future reintroduction programmes. A group of captive-bred ringtails was successfully introduced to St. Catherine’s Island (USA), but none have been reintroduced to Madagascar so far.

Did You Know? All of the ring-tailed lemurs in a group (males and females) help care for infants. The group will even adopt and raise orphans! Occasionally this goodwill goes too far and a female “kidnaps” an infant and will not return it to its mother.