The ring-tailed lemur has a complex array of distinct vocalizations used to maintain group cohesion during foraging and alert group members to the presence of a predator. The tables below detail calls documented in the wild and studied at the Duke Lemur Center. [1]
The ring-tailed lemur is a large strepsirrhine primate and the most recognized lemur due to its long, black and white ringed tail. It belongs to Lemuridae, one of five lemur families, and is the only member of the Lemur genus. Like all lemurs it is endemic to the island of Madagascar. Known locally in Malagasy as maky or hira, it inhabits gallery forests to spiny scrub in the southern regions of the island. It is omnivorous and the most terrestrial of extant lemurs. The animal is diurnal, being active exclusively in daylight hours.
Animal communication is the transfer of information from one or a group of animals to one or more other animals that affects the current or future behavior of the receivers. Information may be sent intentionally, as in a courtship display, or unintentionally, as in the transfer of scent from predator to prey. Information may be transferred to an "audience" of several receivers. Animal communication is a rapidly growing area of study in disciplines including animal behavior, sociology, neurology and animal cognition. Many aspects of animal behavior, such as symbolic name use, emotional expression, learning and sexual behavior, are being understood in new ways.
The Duke Lemur Center is an 85-acre (34 ha) sanctuary for rare and endangered prosimian primates, located at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is the largest sanctuary for prosimian primates in the world.
Call | Vocalizers | Inferred Function |
---|---|---|
Moan | All except infants <14 weeks | Promotes group cohesion in low-to-moderate arousal contexts |
Early-High Wail | All except infants <6–8 weeks | Promotes group cohesion; indicates moderate-to-high level arousal level of caller |
Late-High Wail | Non-infant females (typically), males (rarely) | May promote group cohesion under conditions of extreme arousal |
Howl | Non-infant males | Male advertisement call; together with female counter-calling, howls advertise the presence and location of the group |
Hmm | All except infants <5 weeks | Indicates that slow group relocation is imminent and promotes group cohesion, or reflects a caller's desire to maintain conspecific contact |
Huh | Infants >3 months (most frequent); male juveniles and adolescents; rarely by adults | Similar to hmm, but marks a caller's location more effectively |
Purr | Adult females (most frequent); both sexes of all age classes | Appears to express contentment; also may communicate nonaggressive intent of an adult during close contact |
Chirp | All except infants <3 weeks | Elicits rapid group movement and may promote group cohesion in this context |
Call | Vocalizers | Inferred Function |
---|---|---|
Yip | All non-infants, except alpha females | Expresses mild fear and, perhaps, willingness to defer to a dominant |
Cackle | Adults of both sexes | A defensive display that may reflect a willingness to become aggressive if pressed |
Squeal | Males, during tail waving only | Male "status assertion" vocalization |
All except infants <6 months | Communicates somewhat fearful but nevertheless assertive demeanor | |
Plosive Bark | Both sexes of all ages classes | High-intensity threat vocalization |
Chutter | Dominant adults (toward subordinates of all ages) | Low-to-moderate threat vocalization; may encourage subordinates to give way to dominants, thereby reaffirming dyadic dominance relationships. |
Call | Vocalizers | Inferred Function |
---|---|---|
Gulp | All except infants <14 weeks | Generalized "group alert" vocalization |
Rasp | All except infants | Aerial predator alarm call |
Shriek, variant 1 | All except infants | May serve to inform a raptor that it has been seen, and/or may discourage pursuit by intimidation, as well as to broadcast widely that a low-flying raptor has been detected |
Shriek, variant 2 | All except infants | Same as variant 1, except that variant 2 may express the more urgent nature of the aerial predator encounter. |
Click | All except infants <2 weeks | The click is a low-arousal "location marker" that draws attention to a caller. |
Close-Mouth Click Series (CMCS) | All except infants <2 months | Moderate-arousal "location marker" |
Open-Mouth Click Series (OMCS) | All except infants | A "location marker" reserved for a limited number of contexts of very high arousal; also appears to serve as a cue that aids in the synchronization of yaps |
Yap | All except infants | Carnivore mobbing call |
Call | Inferred Function |
---|---|
Infant Contact Call | Conspecific vocal contact; functions initially to attract the mother and later as a precursor to moans and wails |
Infant Trill, variant 1 | Expresses desire for, and contentment from, conspecific contact |
Infant Trill, variant 2 | May express contentment and/or crossing the sensory threshold from contentment to discomfort |
Call | Inferred Function |
---|---|
Infant Whit, variant 1 | Infant distress call; expresses discomfort and/or distress |
Infant Whit, variant 2 | Infant high-intensity distress call |
Infant Yelp | Serves both as an affiliative and distress vocalization in eliciting prompt retrieval by the mother |
The Cheirogaleidae are the family of strepsirrhine primates containing the various dwarf and mouse lemurs. Like all other lemurs, cheirogaleids live exclusively on the island of Madagascar.
Lemuridae is a family of strepsirrhine primates native to Madagascar, and the Comoros Islands. They are represented by the Lemuriformes in Madagascar with one of the highest concentration of the lemurs. One of five families commonly known as lemurs. These animals were once thought to be the evolutionary predecessors of monkeys and apes, but this is no longer considered correct.
Strepsirrhini or Strepsirhini is a suborder of primates that includes the lemuriform primates, which consist of the lemurs of Madagascar, galagos ("bushbabies") and pottos from Africa, and the lorises from India and southeast Asia. Collectively they are referred to as strepsirrhines. Also belonging to the suborder are the extinct adapiform primates that thrived during the Eocene in Europe, North America, and Asia, but disappeared from most of the Northern Hemisphere as the climate cooled. Adapiforms are sometimes referred to as being "lemur-like", although the diversity of both lemurs and adapiforms does not support this comparison.
Lemurs are mammalian animals of the order primates, divided into 8 families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are native only to the island of Madagascar. Most existing lemurs are small, have a pointed snout, large eyes, and a long tail. They chiefly live in trees (arboreal), and are active at night (nocturnal).
The gray mouse lemur, grey mouse lemur or lesser mouse lemur, is a small lemur, a type of strepsirrhine primate, found only on the island of Madagascar. Weighing 58 to 67 grams, it is the largest of the mouse lemurs, a group that includes the smallest primates in the world. The species is named for its mouse-like size and coloration and is known locally as tsidy, koitsiky, titilivaha, pondiky, and vakiandry. The gray mouse lemur and all other mouse lemurs are considered cryptic species, as they are nearly indistinguishable from each other by appearance. For this reason, the gray mouse lemur was considered the only mouse lemur species for decades until more recent studies began to distinguish between the species.
The ruffed lemurs of the genus Varecia are strepsirrhine primates and the largest extant lemurs within the family Lemuridae. Like all living lemurs, they are found only on the island of Madagascar. Formerly considered to be a monotypic genus, two species are now recognized: the black-and-white ruffed lemur, with its three subspecies, and the red ruffed lemur.
True lemurs, also known as brown lemurs, are the lemurs in genus Eulemur. They are medium-sized primates that live exclusively on Madagascar.
The mongoose lemur is a small primate in the family Lemuridae, native to Madagascar and the Comoros Islands. These arboreal animals have pointed faces, long bushy tails, dark brown upper parts, pale bellies and a beard, which is reddish in males and white in females. They live in family groups and feed primarily on fruits, but also eat leaves, flowers and nectar, with nectar from the kapok tree making up a large part of their diet during the dry season. They have declined sharply in numbers because of habitat destruction and hunting, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated their conservation status as "critically endangered".
The golden-brown mouse lemur, also known as the Lac Ravelobe mouse lemur or the Ravelobe mouse lemur, is part of the family, Cheirogaleidae. These are the smallest species of lemur and are all arboreal, nocturnal, and typically social. All species of Lemur are native to the island of Madagascar. The golden-brown mouse lemur, Microcebus ravelobensis, was first discovered in 1994.
The brown mouse lemur is a small primate, and like the other mouse lemurs can only be found on the island of Madagascar. They are known also as the rufous mouse lemur, eastern rufous mouse lemur, red mouse lemur, or russet mouse lemur. Its dorsal side is brown or reddish-brown, while ventrally it is a whitish-grey.
The black lemur is a species of lemur from the family Lemuridae. Like all lemurs, it is endemic to Madagascar. Originally, the species was thought to have two subspecies, Eulemur macaco macaco and Eulemur macaco flavifrons, both of which were elevated to species status by Mittermeier et al. in 2008 to Eulemur macaco and Eulemur flavifrons respectively. The most startling difference between the two species is the eye colour; Eulemur flavifrons, the blue-eyed black lemur, has blue eyes and is the only primate other than humans to have blue eyes, while Eulemur macaco, the black lemur, has brown or orange eyes, and also has ear tufts.
The red ruffed lemur is one of two species in the genus Varecia, the ruffed lemurs; the other is the black-and-white ruffed lemur. Like all lemurs, it is native to Madagascar. It occurs only in the rainforests of Masoala, in the northeast of the island. It is one of the largest primates of Madagascar with a body length of 53 cm, a tail length of 60 cm and a weight of 3.3–3.6 kg. Its soft, thick fur is red and black in color and sports a buff or cream colored spot at the nape, but a few are known to have a white or pink patch on the back of the limbs or digits and a ring on the base of the tail in a similar color.
Madame Berthe's mouse lemur or Berthe's mouse lemur is the smallest of the mouse lemurs and the smallest primate in the world; the average body length is 9.2 cm (3.6 in) and seasonal weight is around 30 g (1.1 oz). Microcebus berthae is one of many species of Malagasy lemurs that came about through extensive speciation, caused by unknown environmental mechanisms and conditions.
The common brown lemur is a species of lemur in the family Lemuridae. It is found in Madagascar and Mayotte.
The collared brown lemur, also known as the red-collared brown lemur or red-collared lemur, is a medium-sized strepsirrhine primate and one of twelve species of brown lemur in the family Lemuridae. It is only found in south-eastern Madagascar. Like most species of lemur, it is arboreal, moving quadrupedally and occasionally leaping from tree to tree. Like other brown lemurs, this species is cathemeral, lives in social groups, primarily eats fruit, exhibits sexual dichromatism, and does not demonstrate female dominance. The species is listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is threatened primarily by habitat loss.
Madagascar is a 2005 American computer-animated adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. It was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath from a screenplay by Mark Burton, Billy Frolick, Darnell, and McGrath, and features the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, and Jada Pinkett Smith, with Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, and Andy Richter voicing secondary characters. The film's plot revolves on four animals from the Central Park Zoo who unexpectedly find themselves stranded on the island of Madagascar, and must learn to adapt to the wild.
The evolutionary history of lemurs occurred in isolation from other primates, on the island of Madagascar, for at least 40 million years. Lemurs are primates belonging to the suborder Strepsirrhini, which branched off from other primates less than 63 mya. They share some traits with the most basal primates, and thus are often confused as being ancestral to modern monkeys, apes, and humans. Instead, they merely resemble ancestral primates.
The black-and-white ruffed lemur is an endangered species of ruffed lemur, one of two which are endemic to the island of Madagascar. Despite having a larger range than the red ruffed lemur, it has a much smaller population that is spread out, living in lower population densities and reproductively isolated. It also has less coverage and protection in large national parks than the red ruffed lemur. Three subspecies of black-and-white ruffed lemur have been recognized since the red ruffed lemur was elevated to species status in 2001.
Gerp's mouse lemur is a species of mouse lemur known only from the Sahafina Forest in eastern Madagascar, near Mantadia National Park. Its discovery was announced in 2012 by a German and Malagasy research team. The Sahafina Forest had not been studied until 2008 and 2009, when Groupe d'Étude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar (GERP)—a Malagasy-based research and conservation group for which the lemur is named—inventoried the forest's lemurs.