Lemurs are wet-nosed primates of the superfamily Lemuroidea, divided into 8 families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are endemic to the island of Madagascar. Most existing lemurs are small, have a pointed snout, large eyes, and a long tail. They chiefly live in trees and are active at night.
Lemur
A life restoration of Babakotia radofilai, a sloth lemur that became extinct less than two thousand years ago
Close-up of a ruffed lemur's foot, showing the toilet-claw on the second toe and nails on all other toes
A six-tooth version of the strepsirrhine toothcomb in a ring-tailed lemur, with canine-like premolars behind it
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.