True or False?
1. Lemur means ‘ghost’ in Latin.
2. Ring-tailed lemurs have stink fights to fight over food.
3. Ring-tailed lemurs are under threat from hunting, habitat destruction and microclimatic change.
4. Ring-tailed lemurs spend all their time in trees.
5. Ring-tailed lemurs have a black and white tail which is almost twice as long as its body.
Answers!
1.True - it is most commonly thought that this is due to their relfective eyes and ghostly sounds some species make.
2. False - male ring-tailed lemurs don't fight over food but over the females in the troup. The male lemur with the most noxious perfume wins!
3. True - it is thought that when human beings first arrived on the island of Madagascar there were 50 species of lemur. Now there are only 35 different species.
4. False - actually, ring-tailed lemurs spend more time on the ground than any other species of lemur, who mostly prefer to live in the trees.
5. True - their black and white striped tails make the ring-tailed lemur the most distinctive species. These long, strong tails help the lemurs to balance as they run along tree branches.
