The ring-tailed lemur is a medium- to larger-sized strepsirrhine (wet-nosed) primate and the most internationally recognized lemur species, owing to its long, black-and-white, ringed tail. It belongs to Lemuridae, one of five lemur families, and is the only member of the Lemur genus. Like all lemurs, it is endemic to the island of Madagascar, where it is endangered. Known locally in Malagasy as maky or hira, it ranges from gallery forests to spiny scrub in the southern regions of the island. It is omnivorous, as well as the most adapted to living terrestrially of the extant lemurs.
Ring-tailed lemur
The front, lower dentition includes a toothcomb (4 incisors and 2 canine teeth), while the first premolars resemble canines.
The ring-tailed lemur will sit facing the sun to warm itself in the mornings.
Ring-tailed lemurs are some of the most vocal primates.
Strepsirrhini or Strepsirhini is a suborder of primates that includes the lemuriform primates, which consist of the lemurs of Madagascar, galagos ("bushbabies") and pottos from Africa, and the lorises from India and southeast Asia. Collectively they are referred to as strepsirrhines. Also belonging to the suborder are the extinct adapiform primates which thrived during the Eocene in Europe, North America, and Asia, but disappeared from most of the Northern Hemisphere as the climate cooled. Adapiforms are sometimes referred to as being "lemur-like", although the diversity of both lemurs and adapiforms does not support this comparison.
Strepsirrhini
Early primates possessed adaptations for arboreal locomotion that enabled maneuvering along fine branches, as seen in this slender loris.
Notharctus, a type of North American adapiform, resembled lemurs but did not give rise to them.
The suborder Strepsirrhini was proposed by É. Geoffroy in 1812.