Just how many lemurs have we seen?

A few weeks ago we were looking at some old videos I made on our two trips—one long, one very short—to Madagascar in 2003 and 2006. As we viewed the array of lemurs we had seen by day and by night we wondered just how many lemur species we had seen. The answer turned out to be 25. The smallest (at 44 g) was the Rufous Mouse Lemur; the largest—and largest lemur—at up to 9 kg, the Indri.

Grey Mouse Lemur Microcebus murinus by night at Berenty, November 2003

    

    

I also took the opportunity to check if any of the ones we had seen in the various locations would now be considered as belonging to a different species. There has been a great deal of activity in trying to sort out the smaller lemurs and there have been numerous ‘splits’ as more knowledge has been gained and as different species concepts have been applied, rightly or wrongly. However, I could find nothing to change the original identifications.

The extent of the increase in the number of species is particularly evident in the case of the mouse lemurs, Microcebus. From just one recognised species in the 1960s, there were 19 listed in Volume 3 of Handbook of the Mammals of the World published in 2013. At the last count there were 24. Those of us sceptical of the methods of some taxonomists will doubt that number of ‘good’ biological species. Nevertheless, the radiation of lemurs on Madagascar never ceases to astonish while the sound of Indris at dawn is one that stays in the mind forever as does being urinated on from a great height by a Diademed Sifaka…But we have not seen an Aye-aye in the wild.

These are the species we have seen:

Grey Mouse Lemur Microcebus murinus

Rufous Mouse Lemur Microcebus rufus

Golden-brown Mouse Lemur Microcebus ravelovensis

Fat-tailed Dwarf Lemur Cheirogaleus medius

Greater Dwarf Lemur Cheirogaleus major

Milne-Edwards’s Sportive Lemur Lepilemur edwardsi

White-footed Sportive Lemur Lepilemur leucopus

Small-toothed Sportive Lemur Lepilemur microdon

Red-tailed Sportive Lemur Lepilemur ruficaudatus

Ring-tailed Lemur Lemur catta

Mongoose Lemur Eulemur mongoz

Red-bellied Lemur Eulemur rubriventer

Brown Lemur Eulemur fulvus

Red-fronted Lemur Eulemur rufifrons

Black Lemur Eulemur macaco

Grey Bamboo Lemur Hapalemur griseus

Golden Bamboo Lemur Hapalemur aureus

Greater Bamboo Lemur Prolemur simus

Eastern Woolly Lemur Avahi laniger

Western Woolly Lemur Avahi occidentalis

Indri Indri indri

Diademed Sifaka Propithecus diadema

Coquerel’s Sifaka Propithecus coquereli

Verreaux’s Sifaka Propithecus verrauxi

Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur Varecia variegata

Coquerel's Sifaka Propithecus coquereli at Ampijoroa
November 2003