Some lemurs are loners, others crave connection

January 9, 2018 by Robin Smith, Duke University

If lemurs were on Facebook, Fern would have oodles of friends, liking and commenting on their posts. Captain Lee, on the other hand, would rarely send a friend request.

These are just two of the distinct personalities discovered in a recent study of group dynamics in ring-tailed lemurs, primate cousins that live in groups of up to two dozen on the island of Madagascar.

First author Ipek Kulahci spent several years studying ring-tailed lemurs housed at the Duke Lemur Center in North Carolina and the St. Catherines Island Lemur Program in Georgia. Along the way, she noticed a lot of variation in social behavior from one lemur the next. She observed socialite Fern, loner Captain Lee, best buddies Limerick and Herodotus and other lemur characters.

Some individuals seemed more outgoing than others. To try to quantify that, she followed four groups of ring-tailed lemurs over two consecutive years and recorded their behavior a minimum of four times a week for at least two months.

Using a method called social network analysis, she was able to measure how many connections each lemurhad, with whom, and how strong those connections were. She was also able to figure out which lemurs were most influential in each group—either because they connected others, or because they had well-connected friends.

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These ring-tailed lemurs raise a 'stink' when they flirt with potential mates

November 17, 2017 by Don Campbell

A U of T Scarborough study finds that a unique ritual performed by male ring-tailed lemurs may come at a significant physical cost, but it could help their chances in securing a mate.

"Stink-flirting displays are done more often by dominant males," says Amber Walker-Bolton, lead author and instructor in U of T Scarborough's Department of Anthropology.

"This behaviour is also very costly because these males are met with higher levels of aggression than if they were to do other types of scent-marking, so there's definitely something unique about this type of behaviour."

Ring-tailed lemurs are Strepsirrhinines, a sub-order of primates who share a common ancestor with humans. They are very social animals, living in large groups with females dominating the group. Like other lemurs, they huddle in large groups in order to keep warm and maintain social bonds, with lower ranking males often excluded.

Scent is also incredibly important to ring-tailed lemurs. Males use their scent glands to mark territory and often engage in so-called 'stink-fighting' displays where they rub their tails in their scent before wafting it at an opponent.

While stink-fighting is well known, stink-flirting, where males do scent-wafting displays towards a potential female mate, is less understood. This study is the first to look at these displays and their role in terms of male rank and female mate choice.

"One morning I was watching a huddle and saw an outsider male approach and try to waft his tail to a female. Well, right away he was met with all this aggression from the group, and it made me question why they would go through this just to be met with a negative result," says Walker-Bolton, who did her field research at the Berenty Reserve in Madagascar.

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First Evidence of Primates Regularly Sleeping in Caves

Dec. 4, 2013 — Scientists have discovered that some ring-tailed lemurs in Madagascar regularly retire to limestone chambers for their nightly snoozes, the first evidence of the consistent, daily use of the same caves and crevices for sleeping among the world's wild primates.

The ring-tailed lemurs may be opting to sleep in caves for several reasons, said University of Colorado Boulder anthropology Associate Professor Michelle Sauther, who led the study. While the cave-sleeping behavior is likely important because it provides safety from potential predators, it also can provide the primates with access to water and nutrients, help to regulate their body temperatures during cold or hot weather and provide refuge from encroaching human activities like deforestation, she said.

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