Adopt a Fat-tailed Dwarf Lemur

Want to learn more about fat-tailed dwarf lemurs AND help support their care and conservation not only here but also in Madagascar? Consider symbolically adopting Raven, a female fat-tailed dwarf lemur, through the DLC’s Adopt a Lemur Program! Your adoption goes toward the $8,400 per year cost it takes to care for each lemur at the DLC, as well as aiding our conservation efforts in Madagascar. You’ll also receive quarterly updates and photos, making this a fun, educational gift that keeps giving all year long!

Diet and Hibernation

Typically solitary foragers, dwarf lemurs have a diverse diet consisting mostly of fruit and flower nectar. While they are thought to be less carnivorous than mouse lemurs, they too eat insects and small vertebrates. In preparation for torpor, a fat-tailed dwarf lemur can increase its body weight by 75g (about 40%) at a time. It effectively gorges during times of food abundance, to prepare for Madagascar’s dry season when its diet of fruits and flowers is scarce. In the winter months, most dwarf lemurs enter a state of hibernation. During torpor, dwarf lemurs experience a slow-down in their metabolic rates and show a marked decrease in activity and appetite which may last for up to seven months. During this period, these lemurs live off of fat stored in their tails. Hibernation begins as early as March in Madagascar, when the dwarf lemurs retreat to shelters such as those offered by hollow tree trunks. They sometimes do not emerge until the beginning of the wet, hot season in November. Up to five animals may be found huddled together during this period. To prevent obesity in our captive dwarf and mouse lemurs during their torpor period, the DLC has established a “winter diet” and a “summer diet.” The winter diet is initiated in early to mid-September, with a gradual decrease in rations fed to the animals. Starting in mid-March the diet is then increased gradually, reaching the full summer diet amount during the breeding season. Without the reduced rations of the winter months, the dwarf lemurs would continue to consume any and all food provided, which, coupled with a greatly reduced rate of metabolism, could result in extreme obesity!

Video and Infographic: How does hibernation work?

Have you ever wondered how hibernation works? Or if humans could actually hibernate in real life? Check out this informative and adorably illustrated video by Sheena Faherty, one of DLC Director Anne Yoder’s former graduate students. While pursuing her Ph.D. here at Duke, Sheena studied the only primates capable of hibernation behavior: the fat-tailed dwarf lemurs of Madagascar! To watch, click the image above or click HERE. Then, if you'd like to learn even more about these amazing hibernating primates, check out the talk Sheena gave at the DLC’s 50th-anniversary scientific symposium: “Gene expression and physiological extremes in primate hibernation”. You can also read the article "Could People Hibernate? Lemurs Give Clues" published in National Geographic, which discusses how studying hibernation in fat-tailed dwarf lemurs can help people, too - from terminally ill patients to soldiers and astronauts. [Click the image above for a larger view.] To learn even more, you can symbolically adopt Raven, a fat-tailed dwarf lemur, through the DLC’s Adopt a Lemur program. Because you'll receive quarterly updates about Raven and other fat-tailed dwarf lemurs here at the DLC, adopting Raven is a wonderful way to learn about this amazing species AND to support our lemurs' care.

Reproduction

Breeding season: The strong seasonality of breeding found in mouse and dwarf lemurs depends upon a variable “photoperiod,” or day length. Dwarf and mouse lemurs breed at the DLC from mid-April through July. Gestation is 58-62 days. Litter size: Fat-tailed dwarf lemurs commonly have litters of two or more offspring. Of the 168 fat-tailed dwarf lemurs born at the DLC from our founding through July 2019, 9.52% were singletons, 38.10% were twins, 34.52% were triplets, and 17.86% were quadruplets. Infant birth and development: All captive dwarf lemurs are provided with a wide variety of nestboxes, ranging from PVC tubes of varying sizes, to wooden boxes, to suspended enrichment boxes, all suitable for sleeping and raising young. Mothers give birth in the nestboxes and generally will keep their infants hidden inside these shelters. If they need to move their offspring, they do so by carrying them in their mouths. Mouse and dwarf lemur offspring of up to three weeks of age are transported by the mother in this fashion, but by the time the infants are two months old they are behaving much like adults and are capable of independent locomotion. Click here to watch a video of 1.5-month-old fat-tailed dwarf lemur triplets Albatross, Bustard, and Elephant Bird playing with each other independently of mom Emu. Once they go back to mom, they do seem eager to groom and nurse. Sexual maturity: On average, mouse and dwarf lemurs reach sexual maturity at one year of age, although females generally are not capable of giving birth until they are 18 months of age. In the wild, juvenile dwarf lemurs tend to enter their first period of dormancy later than adults, perhaps providing the youngsters with a period of reduced feeding competition in which to put on additional pre-torpor weight.

Social Behavior

Dwarf lemurs forage in solitude at night. During the day they congregate, in packs of up to five to a tree hole, while they sleep. The composition of these sleeping groups changes seasonally, and often animals do choose to sleep alone. Sleeping sites generally consist of hollow trees, whose cavities have been cushioned with leaves. Otherwise, they are spherical nests made of dead leaves concealed in heavy undergrowth. Click HERE to see dwarf lemurs nesting in a tree hole in Tsihomanaomby, a subhumid forest in northern Madagascar. Females generally occupy “home ranges” in central areas of a group’s range, while a single male may overlap his home range with those of several females. Female prosimians, in general, are considered dominant to males.

Habitat

The species of dwarf lemur found at the DLC, Cheirogaleus medius, is native to the dry deciduous forests of western and southern Madagascar. These small lemurs can live in primary forests, established secondary forests as well as the gallery forest of the southern spiny desert. Dwarf lemurs may be responsible for pollinating some species of baobab trees. In addition, they play an important role in the ecology of the tropical forest by aiding in the dispersal of small seeds. As a part of their normal scent marking routine, dwarf lemurs often smear feces onto branches as they walk along well-traveled arboreal pathways through the forest, thereby providing a perfect microclimate for the germination of parasitic plants common in the forest.

Conservation Status

When only two species of dwarf lemurs were recognized -- one throughout the eastern forests, one in the western forests -- both were considered widespread and thus not highly endangered. However now that the genus has been reclassified into several species with more limited distribution, the conservation status of each species needs to be re-evaluated. Their small size, nocturnality, and ability to live in secondary forests may provide them with more protection; but, as with all lemurs of Madagascar, habitat destruction increasingly threatens their survival. Primary threats to dwarf lemurs' habitat include slash-and-burn agriculture, charcoal production, and brushfires. Duke currently houses 20 fat-tailed dwarf lemurs with 11 males and 9 females.

Basic Facts

Classification Order: Primates; Suborder: Prosimii

Family: Cheirogaleidae

Genus: Cheirogaleus

Species: medius Related species Previously, only two species of dwarf lemurs were recognized: the greater dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus major) native to the eastern forests and the fat-tailed dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus medius) in the west. Now a total of seven species are recognized, based on differences in body size, ear characteristics, tail length, skull shape, dentition and pelage. Key facts Adult size: 0.4 – 0.6 pounds

Social life: solitary forager, strictly nocturnal, sleeps in groups of up to 5 individuals

Habitat: western dry deciduous forests

Diet: fruit, flowers (nectar), and occasional insects and small vertebrates

Lifespan: over 20 years in captivity

Sexual maturity: 1.5 years

Mating: extremely seasonal

Gestation: 61 – 64 days

Number of offspring : one to four infants per litter, one litter each year

DLC naming theme : birds (Woodcock, Waxwing, Hummingbird, etc.)

Malagasy name : Matavirambo, Kely Be-hohy, Tsidihy Fat-tailed dwarf lemurs survive long periods of food shortage by storing fat in their tails!

How You Can Help