Ring-Tailed Lemurs By:Morgan

Introduction Its tail is long, striped with black and white. You can find it Madagascar. What is it? A ring-tailed lemur!

Description A ring-tailed lemur weighs 13 pounds, 2 ounces. It has a body of 16 inches and a tail of 23 inches long. They have red eyes, a black and white striped tail, a brown body, and a white face. They also have a nose like a rat and ears like a bat, and they look like a house cat.

Life Span Ring tailed lemurs can live up to 40 years in captivity. It is better to be young in the group because everyone cares for you. Females live as long as males.

Predator/Prey Lemurs have been taken into captivity to protect them from the threats of their habitat being destroyed by logging, farming, and housing for humans. Cats and birds of prey are enemies of ring-tailed lemurs. To escape, they run away or hide. The ring-tailed lemur eats fruit, flowers, leaves, bark, insects, and tree gum. Lemurs bite a hole in the bark with their sharp teeth to get to insects. They use their nails to pull the insects from the trees to eat. Lemurs quench their thirst with juicy fruits and chew them with their back teeth so juice does not get on their fur.

Protection Male lemurs rub their tail against scent glands in their wrists. And then they wave their tail in the direction of an enemy. Males call loud signals to warn sick, young, old or injured members of their group. Some of these signals are similar to barking.

Young Usually, lemurs have one young, but sometimes 2-3 are born. A ring-tailed lemur will be pregnant for 5 months and will have 1-3 babies. She will not mate until late April or May, and will not have another baby for a year. We call their babies young or offspring. After a young is born, it clings to its mother’s underside. A young can take off at about 3 weeks but stays close to mother until about 6 months. They take care of their young for about 6 months.

Environment A ring-tailed lemur needs a rainforest to live in. You can find the ring-tailed lemur in Madagascar.

Behavior Ring-tailed lemurs like to sun themselves. They move as easy on the ground as they do jumping from tree to tree. They can jump as far as 30 feet! Lemurs like to spend a couple hours sunbathing during the day. Lemurs are more active during the day, but less active during the night.

Endangered We built a park in 1991 for lemurs, to hopefully save lemurs. My animal is endangered because a lot of Madagascar’s forest area is destroyed.

Other Interesting Facts Did you know the ring-tailed lemur is more related to you than they are to raccoons? Did you know that lemurs are related to monkeys and apes? 36 kinds of lemurs are endangered. 14 others are extinct.

Conclusion I chose this animal because they looked interesting. I have learned that lemurs are more related to us than they are to raccoons. Ring-tailed lemur’s habitat is being destroyed for farming. To save the lemur, we can stop destroying their rainforest.

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