We will cover all of the other tabs that you see. After you read these fun passages and stories, we hope you have a better understanding of these lemurs. So read on!!!
Lifestyle: A DAY IN THE LIFE
A black and white lemur has lots going on in its life. To help you understand about it, we will use a character named Clara.
It is early morning and it is also the time when Clara wakes up. She spends her day eating and traveling. She is one of the females in the group. A black and white ruffed lemur group is controlled by females. Females choose their own mates, have first access to gathering and eating food, and defend their territory more than males. Clara notices a pack of their worst enemies, the fossas, coming towards their group. She barked a loud alarm call and scrambled up a tree. In the afternoon, Clara takes a nap along with her social group. Clara's group is one of the different types of groups. She belongs to a food group. This group is centered around food. There are up to 26 members when there is lots of food and there are 3-4 members when there is a little food. There are plenty of males and females in one group. The other type of group is a family group. They are centered around one mated pair of lemurs and are composed of relatives. In the late afternoon, Clara wakes up again. One of the lemurs in her group starts marking their territory. They scream and mark leaves, branches, and fruit with their scent. The lemur is also screaming. Clara decides to go forage some food. She is a nimble climber and climbs up trees very quickly. She accurately jumped to another tree and ran on a branch to get some fruit, got it by hanging upside down, and walked down the branch. As Clara was enjoying her fruit, she noticed a male lemur that newly came into the group go to another group. Male lemurs change groups frequently. As evening fell, Clara climbed up a tree and slept high on a branch. She noticed one other black and white ruffed lemur climbing into a hollow tree to sleep. Clara had a very normal day in the life of a black and white lemur.
Communication and Sounds: HOW DO I GET THE MESSAGE ACROSS?
How do humans communicate? Mostly by talking to each other and writing to each other right? We make plenty of noises too. For example, we scream when we are scared, shout to get a message across, and smile if we are happy. But animals don't talk or laugh like we do. How they they communicate and what noises do they make? In a group of black and white lemurs, there are many noises going on at once. We will follow lemurs named Maria and Sammy and hear what they hear and how they communicate.
One day, Sammy discovers that there is a grove of delicious fruit nearby. Sammy decides to tell the leader of the group, a black and white ruffed lemur name Maria. He communicates to her using smell. Maria. Maria communicates that to the rest of the group using one of the black and white lemurs' many loud vochalization. Oh no, Sammy smells a group member communicate to him saying that there are some raptors circling over them. Sammy hears many loud alarm calls made by Maria and other members. Luckily, the raptors flew off. During the late afternoon hours, another pack of black and white lemurs came near their territory. Sammy produces a wailing howl to guard his territory while the females are defending it. Sammy and Maria communicated by using smell and used some of the many noises made by black and white ruffed lemurs.
Are you still craving for more information? Check out our other tabs full of information that you will hopefully understand much better after reading through these passages.
Food/Diet: DAILY MENU
 | ||
| The blue seeds of a Traveler's Plant that lemurs | like to eat. |
~~~ Lemur Menu ~~~
MAIN DISHES:
- Fruits(any kind-you choose!)
- Soil
- Flowers
- Leaves
- Buds
- Rice
- Fungi
- Seeds
- Nectar(sweet)
- Insects
- Small birds and eggs
- Sometimes small mammals
 | ||||||
| Mmmm!!!!! I love fruits! Aren't they delicious? Reproduction: THE CYCLE OF LIFE
Have
you ever wondered if any animal gives birth usually during a certain
time? Or have you ever wondered what would happen if animals could
reproduce up to 6 children at a time! Probably the whole habitat would
fill up. That's what the general person would think. But one who knows
about the Black-and-White Ruffed lemurs, will realize that although
these lemurs give birth during October and November, at around the same
time, with usually children 3-5, but almost up to 6, these infants don't
always have the happiest of lives. 65% of infants die due to falling
accidents, since we humans cut down their homes, for our needs. No
trees= no home=no infants=no increase to population.
To make you understand the reproduction part of these
lemurs, we will be having a story with Sarah as the mother, Tom as the
father, and Tina, Jack, and Kathy as the children. Before the children
are born, and before Tom and Sarah mate, Sarah is in her tree, resting
at night. When day comes, she wakes up to hear her best friend stating
that the mating season has begun. Sarah decides it is time to mate. This
is around May, when the mating season starts. But she doesn't find a
mate. It has come to around July, the end of the mating season, and she
realizes her find for a mate is taking longer since usually mating
occurs in 30 days, known as the estrous cycle. She finally mates with a
lemur called Tom. A year later, Sarah sees that she will soon be a
mother. Her gestation period is about to begin. She has to patiently
wait for 3 months before seeing her children. She also sees some of her
best friends mating again. Lemurs like her best friends are polygynous,
meaning they have one or more mate in a life, whereas like most lemurs,
Sarah is a monogamous, where she only has one mate for life. 3 months
later, she gives birth to triplets. Usually lemurs give birth to twins,
so this is common. She knows that she must build a nest. Surprisingly,
her kind is the only type of lemur to build nest for their young! She
finds a suitable place, around 10-20 meters above the ground. She sees
that she cannot find enough material to build her nest, but she cannot
let her new born children wait. Therefore, she uses her own hair to line
the nests. What's better than being born in your mother's fur?
After three weeks, the infants are finally allowed to leave their nests. In those three weeks, they had to stay in their nest and had to be carried in their mother's forage. When they are five weeks, they can successfully climb trees. Sarah and Tom are very proud of their children..but...the real danger is yet to come. In the ages of two months, they play and roll with their dad, Tom. They also try their teeth. Tina and Jack prove to be much faster, quicker, and clever then Kathy. This makes Kathy sad. A few days later, Kathy decides to wander off, to explore the forest. Night is about to fall, and she can't find her way. She is only a small infant, and can barely see that the tree in front is her home tree. She decides to rest in the tree she is, where a nest lies.... The next morning, Tom and Sarah find the horrifying truth that Kathy died in a falling incident. She fell into the 65% range of infants who die due to falling accidents of deforestation. Tina and Jack though, fall in the 35% of lemur babies that survive the first 3 months. At four months, Tina and Jack are independent and active as adults. By this time, both their mother and father have passed away, but they have successfully proved to continue on with life. As you see, this is the typical story of a lemur's life. Of course, no resemblance to any person is intended, and of course this specific scenario may not be the common, but the facts in it are true. We hope you enjoyed learning about the reproduction of these lemurs through a funny story! Threats: HOW WE ARE BEING HURT
ALIENS ATTACK EARTH! THEY DO NOT SEEM NICE!
THEY WISH TO DESTROY HUMANS! What do you do? They confront and surround
you. You have no choice. That's when you see that the forest beside you
goes on fire and is raging towards you! You are trapped. Death is
certain.
Imagine a Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur in that situation.
Now, the scenario above probably will never happen(since it includes
aliens), but the lemurs have to face such a situation every single day.
Why? Because of the many threats. One threat is us, humans(where the
alien part comes in). For those lemurs, they probably barely see humans
on their small island, so when they see these humans cutting their
homes, food sources, and killing their own, they feel helpless, just
like in the scenario above. Still, we aren't the only ones threatening
these lemurs. Just as these lemurs notice that the humans are cutting
away their trees, they climb down. But no! They are face to face with a
squad of Fossas! Yes, Fossa's are one of the highly prominent predators
of these lemurs. In our case, we'll use a lemur called Lily. Lily is now
heart-broken. Her home destroyed, being confronted by Fossa's! But she
decided to be strong. She lets out a wail for self-defense and climbs up
the tree and starts clinging from one tree to the other. Soon, she
climbs down to take a pause. Sigh, she sees a band of mongooses and boa
constrictors approach. Her death is near her. She panics. What does she
have left? No home, no food source, no safety. Now imagine a million
lemurs going through what Lily is going through everyday.
Threats: THE HUMAN IMPACT
Hi!!
First of all, welcome to this section of this blog. After reading this
section, our goal is to leave you with an idea of what you are doing to
hurt these innocent lemurs.
So what are you doing?
Sadly, this attitude
of humans of not caring about these lemurs is causing these lemurs not
to be threatened....not endangered...but CRITICALLY ENDANGERED! So what
does "critically endangered" mean? In terms of these lemurs, it means
barely 10,000 lemurs, including sub-species exist today. You may
say,"well so what? Not like their extinct." To be true, the day isn't
far when in the news, we'll be hearing that another animal has been
listed to the long line of extinct animals..all because we never cared.
So
why are they being critically endangered? Unfortunately, most reasons
consist of what humans are doing to hurt them. The following is a list
of how we hurt them:
After reading this,
hopefully, a new passion has arised in each one of you. Look around,
look at nature's beauty, you don't want to lose it. Why not start with
helping these critically endangered lemurs? Who knows, we could save
them, and you will be proud of yourself.
Well
what can you do about it? Why not go ahead and check our Conservation
Efforts tab. You'll surely find something to contribute to saving these
lemurs.
|
