Ring-Tailed Lemur

• Range: Only in Madagascar
  
• Habitat: Ring-tailed lemurs live in spiny desert and dry forest, and scrub.
  
• Description: Ring-tailed lemurs have a gray back, with white under-parts and a white fox-like face with dark brown eye patches. They have a distinctive black and white ringed tail.
  
• Diet: Although fruit makes up 70 percent of their diet, they also feed on leaves, bark, sap and flowers.
  
• Behavior: Ring-tailed lemurs are diurnal (active during the day) and arboreal (tree dwelling). They are more terrestrial than other lemurs and move on all fours across the forest floor. When it is sunny, they spend time sunbathing. Females are dominant to males, and the dominance hierarchies between females are complicated and changeable. Group size varies from five to 30, but averages at 17 members of mixed sex, but with one dominant female.
  
• Breeding: After a gestation period of about 135 days, a single offspring is born. Occasionally they may have twins or triplets. The young are grayish with a thin coat of hair. The entire group helps care for and play with the young. Young lemurs first begin to climb at about three weeks, and are usually independent by six months. They are sexually mature and are fully grown at 18 months. In captivity lemurs have lived for 20 to 27 years