The Lemurs Of Madagascar

Lemurs are delightful to watch, leaping
from tree to tree, the ghost of the forest - The Sifakas, so cute,
no bigger than a house cat and have a snout like a fox to boot
with black and white fur, their round, hairless faces seeking.

Long limbs end in curved skeletal fingers
Soft, leathery pads grip the branch to linger —

And stare, with their stark, reddish-orange eyes
that glow like hot coals. Will they bound or freeze
or show off their flying leaps? They soon decide,
as a dancer in perfect harmony among the trees.

In most groups, gentle females are the number one
but with Bamboo Lemur, dominant males are top guns.

Lemurs are shy and sleep high in the treetop
Their life span is thirty years or more, oh, my
They groom each other as monkeys do and stop
to enjoy a social system such as polyandry —

To polygyny and monogamy, without judgment.
Red-bellied Lemurs go with what works for them.
The lemurs know how to stay happy and carefree,
though the treetops are not always the safest place to be —

Because when a fossa, a nocturnal mongoose comes creeping
up trees and sinks their teeth into a lemur's throat when sleeping.
Sadly, this is part of nature, but it is a known cause of their demise
thus, provoking many lemur lovers to cry out - Why?

I've written a poem about my favorite lemur, but there are many more lemurs to enjoy. These endangered nocturnal lemurs live in the dry forests of western Madagascar and rarely leave the forests' trees. Little is known of these rare primates. I thought I would shed some light on these beautiful creatures. It is a myth, though, that Lemurs use their long tails to hang from trees as some primates can do.

Below I have named and described a few more lemurs:

The Ring-tailed Lemurs communicate with each other with short grunting sounds or a quick bark to keep the group together while foraging or to warn each other about approaching predators.

The Mouse, which has the cutest, most expressive face I’ve seen, is the smallest of the lemurs, but the pygmy mouse lemur is the smallest primate in the world. Its head and body are less than two and a half inches (six centimeters) long, though its tail is a bit more than twice that length.

The Golden-crowned (pictured above)- The fur of the Golden-Crowned Sifaka Lemur is a white or cream color. On top of the head, though, is a crown of gold which is where the name comes from. They weigh about 7 ½ pounds as mature adults. They have a very long tail that they rely on for vertical leaping and climbing.

The Golden-Crowned Sifaka Lemur - The black-and-white ruffed lemur dwells mainly in the eastern rainforest of Madagascar. They are separated from the red ruffed lemur population by the Antainambalana River. The ruffed (both red and black-and-white) lemurs are tree dwellers and are the most arboreal of the true lemurs' group, but a few are known to have a white or pink patch on the back of their limbs or digits. There may also be a ring on the base of its tail in a similar color.