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Eulemur fulvus rufus are mid sized lemurs, and are sexually dichromatic. The males have a grey coat with creamy yellow hair around the face, white above the eyes and a black nose. The females are a redish brown, again with a black nose, often the nose stripe continues across the forehead and above the head. Infants are usually colored like adult males (even infant females), except that within a few weeks male infants develop an orange tuft which females do not have.
There are several E. f. rufus groups in the Talatakely Trail System at RNP. Perhaps the best time to visit to see E. fulvus rufus is from late March through May, this is when the guava is fruiting and the animals are easy to spot in the guava patches. This is also the mating season and you are more likely to see scent marking and other interesting behaviors.
The data given here come mostly from Deborah Overdorff's study groups from Vatoharanana (about 5km south of the main research cabin) (Overdorff et al 1999), and from Debi Durham's study in Talatakely and Vatoharanana (Durham, 2000, personal communication).
| Head & Body Length (Mittermeier et al, 1994) | 400mm (16in) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tail Length (Mittermeier et al, 1994) | 550mm (21in) | |||
|
2700g (95oz) | |||
| 2450g |
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E. fulvus rufus mate in May and give birth in September in Vatoharanana (Overdorff, 1996a), and in August (in Talatakely, Durham, personal communication). In 1999, all females studied were pregnant by 15 May, gestation is 100 days (Durham). Infants are carried across the mother's hips with the head peaking out between thigh and pelvis. Infants are weaned around 135 days (at the time of greatest food availability, Wright 1999). Females usually stay with their natal groups and produce their first infant at between 2 and 4 years (2 years, n=1; 3 years, n=1; 4 years, n=3). Males usually migrate out of their natal group between 3 and 4.5 years, they wander for 6-12 months before settling into a new group and are usually accepted within a month of immigration. Thereafter they stay with the new group until old age, though as they age they become more peripheral to the group (Overdorff, 1996a) (At Berenty, however, groups are very fluid, with little apparent continuity from year to year).
Interestingly males in a group are often related, though unrelated to the females. Males are also observed to migrate in pairs, indeed Overdorff reports seeing 19 single migrant males, 11 pairs of migrant males (=22 individuals) implying that this is perhaps the more common pattern. (also 3 migrant females and 7 male, female pairs).
One infant (occasionally twins) is produced per year, and females breed every year. (Overdorff 1999a)
In 1999 a female miscarried in July, conceived again in August and gave birth to twins in November. The twins were both carried by a male in the troop. (Durham, personal communication)
Females are less likely to sleep in lemur balls as the birth season approaches. Males show intense interest in infants after females give birth and females are reluctant to allow them to approach closely, often leading to males chasing females. In 1999 one female fell 12m during such a chase, and broke her arm. Both she and the infant survived. (Durham, personal communication)
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Locomotion is mainly quadrupedal
2.2Mb
V1.3Mb
V2. In TTS E. f. rufus rarely
descend to the ground (occasionally for water, dirt, or ground living mushrooms),
while in Berenty they are frequently terrestrial. This may be due to the
availability of food on the ground at Berenty (primarily tamarind pods),
or water on the ground, or the heat of the canopy, or the more open nature
of the canopy (certainly the lemurs are at home in the outlying scrub where
there is no continuous tree cover).
Dagosto (Dagosto, 1995) reports that leaping
.1Mb V3
is more frequent in the dry season than the wet (and conversely that quadrupedal
walking is less frequent).
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E. fulvus rufus are primarily frugivorous at RNP
2.8Mb
V4, foraging is selective, they do not
eat every fruit they find
1.7Mb
V5. They are also known to eat leaves,
flowers, insects, mushrooms and dirt
1.9Mb
V6,
2.9Mb
V7 and have occasionally been
observed to take small vertebrates like lizards, infant Lemur catta,
and even infant E. fulvus rufus (A. Pitts
1995, A. Jolly et al 2000).
They eat entire flowers rather than simply licking nectar (as sympatric E. rubriventer does) and are not good pollinators (Overdorff 1996b). They eat more unripe fruit and more leaves than E. r. (Overdorff, 1996c)
Sex differences in feeding variables did not correlate with female energetic costs. (Overdorff, 1991)
A group of E. fulvus rufus rarely eat all in one patch, often the group has several adjacent patches open in a given feeding bout.
I have not observed this to happen.
E. fulvus rufus are cathemeral. They take a long siesta in the middle of the day (at Berenty it will sometimes stop moving as early as 10:00 and not start again until 16:00).
5.8Mb
V8
The animals themselves have alarm calls for ground and aerial threats. The adults spend a good deal of time being vigilant when feeding in an exposed area, vigilance is usually directed upwards as though that were thought to be the source of the greater threat. The reaction to an aerial alarm call is more intense than a ground predator call, Overdorff reports animals dropping to within 1m of the ground following an aerial call and remaining motionless for 30min.
There is no obvious dominance hierarchy in Eulemur fulvus rufus. (Pereira et al, 1990, Pereira et al, 1997, Overdorff 1998)
Here a male displaces a female at a point source of desirable food
(Hydnora
sp.) at Berenty during the mating season
3.5Mb
V9
Groups are multi-male, multi-female in nature with approximately equal sex-ratios (generally there are slightly more males than females). Male-female dyads tend to form within the group, these are not true pair-bonds (Pereira, 1997 et al, Overdorff 1998), however out of 6 births examined, Overdorff reports that 5 came from dyads. The male of a pair usually gained first (but usually not exclusive) access to his partner, and the female accepted copulation attempts from her partner and often seem to prefer him as a mate. The males in a partnership keep other females from displacing their partner at feeding sites. As males get older they are replaced in partnerships by immigrant males and they become peripheral to the group, usually lagging some distance behind. As females get older their reproductive success appears to increase.
The home range area is 100+ha. Mean daily path length: 134-2114m, mean=961m (Overdorff 1996).
Eulemur fulvus rufus groups do not defend their territories (Overdorff 1996a). However they will displace other animals feeding in a patch (usually this is not aggressive (at least not at Berenty), a group moves in, another group moves out), if the patch is large (ie. a large fig tree) there may be several groups feeding in one patch without interfering with one another.
E.f.r. wrestling play, at
BerentyP6
2.5Mb
V24
S4
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The most common form of scent marking is anogenital. The animal approaches
a substrate, squats and drags its anogenital region along the surface being
marked
.5Mb
V14. If the substrate is vertical (ie.
the trunk of a sapling) the animal will do a handstand facing away from the
tree. Females will often scent mark first, with males marking on top of the
female's mark
2.4Mb
V15
3.2Mb
V16. Males rub the tops of their heads
(or hands) into the scent left by females
.3Mb
V17 (or their hands) on a substrate.
Males will mark females
1.4Mb
V18
1.0Mb
V19. (Vick
1976)
Scent marking becomes common as one group approaches another
(Vick 1976), scent marking is also more common in
the mating season. Males spend a lot of time in the breeding season checking
the state of females by smelling their genitals
1.0Mb
V20, sometimes following a female, marking
her, checking her and then sitting behind her almost in mating posture
3.6Mb
V21.
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Eulemur fulvus rufus spend a lot of time with other group members.
They sleep in lemur balls, they indulge in mutual grooming session
1.9Mb
V22,
2.1Mb
V23.
Eulemur fulvus rufus are found in both the southeastern rainforests and the western deciduous dry forests of Madagascar (Mittermeier et al, 1994). There are 6 subspecies of Eulemur fulvus and their range forms a ring around the country, present in almost all areas except the south.
These two congeners have a similar size and are both primarily frugivores, yet they are sympatric. They have a different social structure (E.r. is monogamous with small groups, while E.f.r. lives in large multi-male, multi-female groups). An E.f.r. group tends to eat in several adjacent patches at a time while an E.r. group will only eat in one. E.r. is territorial and actively defends its territory's boundaries, while several E.f.r. groups will have overlapping ranges. E.f.r. groups have much larger and very fluid home ranges. E.f.r. groups will travel further between patches than E.r. groups. In E.f.r. there is little male parental care, while in E.r. groups there is a great deal. (Overdorff 1996a)
Although born at the same time, E.r. infants develop faster than E.f.r. E.r. feed lower in the canopy than E.f.r. (Durham, personal communication)
E. f. r. were introduced to the deciduous riverine forest at Berenty around 1975 and have thrived. In about 1985, a small group of E.f. collaris were introduced to the same area and the two have hybridized to the point where most E.f. animals now have a trace of collaris blood (Jan Jekielek, personal communication). The social behavior of the species has changed over the years, perhaps as a result of the increasing concentration of animals. In 1992 and 1993 there we did not observe any aggressive interaction between groups of E.f.r. (or E.f.r. towards L. catta), indeed one group would sometimes stand aside to allow another to pass by, more recently however there are greater signs of aggression. The quality of the forest at Berenty is quite diverse, from a very rich riverine tamarind forest to a scrub of Capris and Azema vines to true spiny forest. Group size seems to depend on the territory quality, with large groups (~14 members) living in the tamarind forest, smaller groups (~6 members) in the scrub and no groups in the spiny forest . At the end of the dry period, when water is very scarce a group has been observed 1.5km from it's home range one day, and back in the range the next. Similar distances have been observed during the fruiting and flowering of large patches. E.f.r. are quite terrestrial at Berenty. I have observed them playing on the ground adjacent to a play group of L. catta, sometimes animals would move (briefly) to play with the other species.
Mammalia -> Primata (Strepsirrhini, Lemuriformes) -> Lemuridae (Lemurianae) -> Eulemur fulvus rufus
There are possibly 6 subspecies of Eulemur fulvus of which several should perhaps be classed as species in their own right (Wyner et al, 1999).
Dagosto, M, 1995 "Seasonal Variation in Positional Behavior of Malagasy Lemurs", International Journal of Primatology, 16:(5) 807-833
Erhart EM & Overdorff, DJ, 1999 "Female coordination of group travel in wild Propithecus and Eulemur", International Journal of Primatology, 20:(6) 927-940
Goodman, SM, O'Conner S, Langrand O, 1993 "A review of predation on lemurs: Implications for the evolution of social behavior in small, nocturnal primates", Lemur Social Systems and their Ecological Basis, 51-66
Jolly, A. et al, 2000 "Infant killing, wounding and predation in Eulemur and Lemur", International Journal of Primatology, 21:(1) 20-40
Kappeler, PM, 1991, "Patterns of sexual dimorphism in body weight among prosimian primates", Folia Primatologica, 57:132-146
Mittermeier, Russell et al, 1994, The Lemurs of Madagascar, Conservation International
Overdorff, DJ, et al, 1999, "Life History of Eulemur fulvus rufus from 1988-1998 in southeastern Madagascar", American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 108:(3) 295-310
Overdorff, DJ, 1998, "Are Eulemur species pair-bonded? Social organization and mating strategies in Eulemur fulvus rufus from 1988-1995 in Southeastern Madagascar", American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 105:(2) 153-166
Overdorff, DJ, 1996a, "Ecological Correlates to Activity and Habitat use of two Prosimian Primates, Eulemur rubriventer and Eulemur fulvus rufus in Madagascar", American Journal of Primatology, 40:(4) 327-42
Overdorff, DJ, 1996b, "Ecological Correlates to Range use in red-bellied lemurs(Eulemur rubriventer) and rufous lemurs (Eulemur fulvus rufus) ", Lemur Social Systems and their Ecological Basis, 167-178
Overdorff, DJ, 1996c, "Ecological Correlates to social structure in two Lemur species in Madagascar", American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 100:(4) 487-506
Overdorff, DJ, 1991, "Ecological Correlates to Social Structure of two Prosimian Primates, Eulemur rubriventer and Eulemur fulvus rufus in Madagascar", Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University
Pereira, ME, Kaufman, R, Kappeler PM and Overdorff, DJ, 1990."Female dominance does not characterize all the Lemuridae", Folia Primatologica, 55(2):96-103
Pereira, ME, McGlynn, CA, 1997, "Special relationships instead of female dominance for red-fronted lemurs, Eulemur fulvus rufus", American Journal of Primatology, 43:(3) 239-258 (& 44:(1) 85-85)
Pitts, A. 1995 "Predation by Eulemur fulvus rufus on infant Lemur catta at Berenty, Madagascar", Folia Primatologica, 65(3): 169-171
Rowe, Noel, 1996, The Pictorial Guide to the Living Primates, Pogonias Press
U.S. Congress, 1973, "Threatened and Endangered Wildlife and Plants", U.S. Endangered Species Act
Vick, LG, Conley, JM, 1976, "An Ethogram for Lemur fulvus", Primates, 17:(2); 125-144
Wright, P.C. 1999 "Lemur traits and Madagascar ecology: coping with an island environment." Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 42: 31-72.
Wyner, Yeal, et al, 1999, "Species concepts and determination of historic gene flow patterns in Eulemur fulvus complex", Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 66:(1), 39-56
E.f.r. forage for caterpillars on an Acacia at
BerentyP9
-- RNP Main -- Other
Lemurs at RNP -- Lemur Taxonomy
-- Comments --
Copyright --
-- E. rubriventer
--
