Nocturnal seekers | Lemuroidea

 

The sun's off the horizon, everything still and lifeless. Calm and asleep resting in the darkness. Winds blowing softly through the dense canopy rustling the dry leaves. Amidst all this stillness is a sneaky nocturnal primate randomly licking leaves and branches, very quietly though. Moving about branch to branch with it's striped long and thin but strong tail. Sniffing for more. There seems something on these leaves and branches, which also make up about 50% of it's diet. But what is it ?

Lemurs. These are lemurs, small primates found and endemic to only Madagascar. Due to it's 80 Million years long isolation from any main land, there are animals that are found nowhere else in the world (and now decreasing in numbers due to human encroachment and activities). These lemurs are mostly active at night for a number of reasons :- 

• They have better vision system enabling them to gain an advantage over all the other nocturnal animals.
  
• They also avoid their top and main predator by doing so, which is a "Fossa".
  
• They go on about their diet undisturbed as the most of the forest is fast asleep.

 There are further many species of lemurs , not all are nocturnal. These lemurs feed mostly on Honey dew. The droppings of insects that purely feed on plant sap. Similar to honey honey dew is sweet and more longer lasting without getting spoiled. These bugs cling to the branch they are feeding on and continue sucking until full and drop their droppings, which fall on leaves and branches below. Honey dew is the favorite of lemurs. Lemurs are the world's oldest living primates. A fact that few people know is that lemurs are considered the world's oldest primates !

The story of lemurs begins over 70 million years ago, long before humans. This was a world when lemur-like animals, the planet's first primates, roamed Africa time of the dinosaurs !!

Although many say they rather lived in the same time but in the same place, meaning they did not co-exist ever.

These alternate but dimly coloured primates have longer tail than their bodies itself.  Unlike monkeys and other primates, lemurs rely more heavily on their sense of smell. Lemurs have a second tongue—called the “Sublingua”—that is used to remove debris from the tooth comb. It rest at the back in the mouth and lacks taste buds. 

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J. Maanavendra roy,
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