Ring-Tailed Lemur (Lemur catta): Facts, Habitat and Diet

What is a ring-tailed lemur?

Lemurs are primates, the same order as monkeys, apes and humans, but they belong to a separate, older branch called the strepsirrhines or “wet-nosed” primates. The ring-tailed lemur is the only member of its genus, Lemur, and belongs to the family Lemuridae, the “true lemurs”. Like every lemur, it lives naturally only on Madagascar, the large island off the southeast coast of Africa. To see where lemurs fit among primates, read Are lemurs monkeys?.

The species name catta refers to its cat-like look and purring call, and Malagasy people call it maky or hira. It is by far the most familiar lemur in zoos and on screen, from nature documentaries to King Julien in the animated Madagascar films.

Appearance

A ring-tailed lemur has a slim body, long hind legs and a fox-like face. The back is gray to gray-brown, the limbs are paler gray and the underside is white. The face is white with a black triangular snout, and each amber eye sits in a dark, diamond-shaped patch. Like other lemurs it has a moist, hairless nose tip, called a rhinarium, that helps it pick up scents.

The tail is the star feature. It is longer than the head and body together and is ringed with about 13 alternating black and white bands, ending in a black tip. The tail cannot grip branches. Instead it is used for balance when leaping and as a visual signal: when a troop walks across open ground, each lemur holds its tail high like a flag.

The hands have flat nails, and the thumb and big toe can grasp branches. The second toe of each foot carries a sharp “grooming claw” used to scratch and clean the fur, and the lower front teeth form a comb for grooming, both features shared by most lemurs.

How big is a ring-tailed lemur?

Ring-tailed lemurs are about the size of a large house cat, though much lighter. Males and females are similar in size.

Wild lemurs in the dry south average around 2.2 kg (4.9 lb). Zoo animals with steady food are often heavier.

Habitat and range

The ring-tailed lemur lives in the south and southwest of Madagascar, from the region of Tolagnaro (Fort-Dauphin) in the east north along the west coast to around Belo-sur-Mer, south of Morondava. Its favorite habitat is gallery forest, the strips of tall tamarind trees that line rivers through otherwise dry country. It also lives in dry deciduous forest, spiny bush full of thorny plants and the rocky canyons of Isalo.

It is a tough survivor of extreme conditions. In the Andringitra Mountains it climbs to about 2,600 m (8,500 ft), where nights can fall below freezing and the lemurs grow thicker coats. In the spiny forest of Beza Mahafaly, daytime temperatures can top 40 °C (104 °F). In some rocky areas, troops sleep on cliffs and get water from plants and dew during the long dry season.

Distribution within this range is patchy, because so much habitat has been cleared. Strongholds include Andohahela, Andringitra, Isalo, Tsimanampetsotse and Zombitse-Vohibasia national parks, plus Berenty and Beza Mahafaly reserves. The wider story of lemur distribution is in Where do lemurs live?.

What do ring-tailed lemurs eat?

The ring-tailed lemur is an omnivore that eats mostly plants. Fruit and leaves make up the bulk of its diet, and in many places the tamarind tree, known locally as kily, is the single most important food. In the dry season, tamarind pods and leaves can make up as much as half of everything a troop eats.

Over a year a troop may feed on several dozen plant species, taking flowers, herbs, bark, sap and resin as well as fruit and leaves. Ring-tailed lemurs also eat insects such as caterpillars, cicadas and grasshoppers, spiders and their webs, and occasionally small birds or chameleons. They sometimes lick soil from termite mounds, which may provide minerals.

Because it forages on the ground as well as in trees, this lemur can exploit fallen fruit and low plants that tree-bound lemurs miss. A troop typically feeds in one part of its home range for a few days and then moves on, walking about 1 km (0.6 mi) a day on average.

Behavior and troop life

Ring-tailed lemurs are active by day and highly social. They live in troops of usually 6 to 25 animals, with an average of around 13 to 15. The core of each troop is a group of related females, who stay in the troop where they were born. Males move to a new troop at around three to five years old and often transfer again every few years.

Females are dominant. They get first access to food, choose their mates and lead the defense of the territory against neighboring troops. A female can displace any male from a feeding spot with a lunge, a cuff or a bite. Males have their own separate ranking based largely on age.

The day begins with a sunbath. After a cold night, lemurs sit upright facing the sun with their arms and legs spread to warm the thinner fur of the belly, a posture often described as “sun worship”. At night, troop members huddle together in sleeping groups to share warmth.

Grooming is the glue of troop life. Lemurs groom each other with their comb-like lower teeth and tongue rather than picking through fur with the fingers as monkeys do.

Scent marking and stink fights

Smell is central to ring-tailed lemur communication. Both sexes have scent glands near the genitals, and males also carry glands on the inner wrist, covered by a horny spur, and on the chest near the armpit. Lemurs rub these scents onto branches, rocks and tree trunks to mark their territory and announce their identity.

Males take scent warfare further. In a stink fight, a male draws his tail through the secretions of his wrist glands, then raises it over his head and waves it toward a rival. Opponents can trade scented tail-waves for many minutes until one backs off. Males also use the spurs on their wrists to gouge scented scratch marks into small saplings.

The species is also one of the most vocal lemurs. It uses a range of calls to keep the troop together while foraging, to warn of hawks and ground predators, and a cat-like purr when content.

Reproduction and life cycle

Breeding is tightly seasonal. Mating takes place from about mid-April to mid-May, and each female is receptive for only a few hours on a single day, with females in a troop coming into season on different days. Females usually mate with several males.

After a pregnancy of about 135 days, a single infant is born in August to October, at the start of the season when flowers and new leaves appear. Twins occur, especially in zoos. A newborn weighs about 70 g (2.5 oz) and clings to its mother’s belly for the first week or two before riding on her back.

Infants start eating solid food at around two months and are weaned at about five months. Other females in the troop often help carry and care for the young. Life is hard for infants in the wild: in some years about half die before their first birthday, from predators, falls or drought. Females can breed from about two and a half to three years old.

How long do ring-tailed lemurs live?

In the wild, females rarely live past about 16 years, and the oldest known wild female at Berenty Reserve reached about 20. Males are harder to track because they change troops. In zoos, ring-tailed lemurs commonly live into their late teens or twenties, and the longest reported captive lifespans reach about 27 years or more.

Predators and threats

Natural predators include the fossa, a cat-like carnivore found only in Madagascar, birds of prey such as the Madagascar harrier-hawk and Madagascar buzzard, and large snakes such as the Madagascar ground boa. Introduced animals, including the small Indian civet, feral cats and domestic dogs, also kill lemurs. Alarm calls differ for threats from the air and from the ground.

The greatest threats come from people. Forests in southern Madagascar are cleared for grazing land and crops, cut for firewood and charcoal, and burned in slash-and-burn farming. Ring-tailed lemurs are also hunted for bushmeat in some areas and captured illegally to be kept as pets. Severe droughts, which are becoming more frequent, can cause sharp population crashes.

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List classifies the ring-tailed lemur as Endangered, with a decreasing population. A 2017 survey of 32 sites counted only about 2,000 animals, which raised alarm about a crash in numbers. Other researchers argued that the true total is higher because many areas were not surveyed, but all agree the species has declined sharply. International trade in wild ring-tailed lemurs has been banned under CITES Appendix I since 1977.

Captivity tells a different story. Ring-tailed lemurs breed readily in zoos, and there are thousands in collections worldwide, making them the most common captive primate. Zoos and centers such as the Duke Lemur Center help fund research and conservation in Madagascar, where protected areas, community-managed forests and ecotourism offer the best hope. Lemurs as a group face severe pressure, explained in Why are lemurs endangered?.

Myths and facts

Myth: lemurs are a kind of monkey. Lemurs are primates but not monkeys. They belong to the strepsirrhines, along with lorises and galagos, a branch that split from the ancestors of monkeys and apes tens of millions of years ago.

Myth: lemurs can hang by their tails. No lemur has a gripping tail. The ring-tailed lemur’s tail is for balance and signaling.

Fact: females really are in charge. Female dominance over males is the rule in ring-tailed lemurs and in many other lemur species, which is unusual among primates.

For more of Madagascar’s unique wildlife, see animals of Madagascar.