Ringtailed Lemur Biology

This volume includes up-to-date field research on the longest-studied and best known of lemur species. It contains articles by scientists from America, Europe, Japan and Madagascar, who combine their knowledge to describe an animal which is unique among primates. The papers review past research and add new dimensions of research related to nutrition, health, hormonal biology, plant ecology, behavioral ecology, and demography of Lemur catta. Ringtailed Lemur Biology is the first comprehensive volume dedicated to the Lemur catta, Madagascar's flagship species, whose black and white tails adorn tourist brochures and children's schoolbooks, and which has been studied in the wild for forty years. Written by leading research scientists in the field, this is the authoritative volume on ringtailed lemur distribution, ecology, social behavior, and health and includes the first maps of their distribution, population, and decline. The editors, and contributors, have united to produce a book of cutting edge knowledge on the lemur species whose troop structure is most like the monkeys of other continents but which proves, like so much else in Madagascar, to be unique.