Ring-Tailed Lemur

Ring-tailed lemur backs are gray to rosy brown with gray limbs and dark gray heads and necks. They have white bellies. Their faces are white with dark triangular eye patches and a black nose. True to their name, ring-tailed lemurs' tails are ringed with 13 alternating black and white bands.Unlike most other lemurs, ringtails spend 40 percent of their time on the ground. They move quadrupedally along the forest floor.The average body mass for adult males is 6 pounds (3 kilograms). Females are usually smaller. Their tails can be up to 2 feet long (61 centimeters).When ring-tailed troops travel throughout their home range, they keep their tails raised in the air, like flags, to keep group members together.A ring-tailed lemur mob will gather in open areas of the forest to sunbathe. They sit in what some call a "yoga position" with their bellies toward the sun and their arms and legs stretched out to the sides. This position maximizes the exposure of the less densely covered underside of the lemurs to the sun, warming them up before they forage.Ring-tailed lemurs live in southwestern Madagascar, in arid, open areas and forests in territories that range from 15 to 57 acres (0.06 to 0.2 square kilometers) in size.Ringtails eat leaves, flowers and insects. They can also eat fruit, herbs and small vertebrates.Ring-tailed lemurs live found in social groups ranging in size from three to 25 individuals. The groups include multiple males and females. Females spend their whole lives in their birth group. Generally males change groups when they reach sexual maturity at age three.Females are dominant within groups, meaning females have preferential access to food and choice of whom to mate with. This is unusual in the primate world. Males do have a dominance hierarchy, though even low-ranking males are able to mate. The hierarchy among ring-tailed lemur females is not linear, and daughters do not always assume the rank of their mothers. One explanation for this pattern is that ring-tailed lemur mothers do not support their daughters in social interactions, so the daughters do not inherit rank but fight to achieve their own rank.Females usually give birth to their first baby when they are three years old, and usually once a year every year after that. But, in human care, females can have their first offspring as early as 18 months old. Females are sexually receptive for one to two days each year, and estrus may be as short as 6 to 24 hours. In the wild, mating is seasonal beginning in mid-April, with infants being born in August and September. Gestation lasts 4.5 months. Generally, ring-tailed lemurs give birth to one offspring, but twins can be frequent if food is plentiful.Initially, infants cling to their mothers' bellies, but, after approximately two weeks, they can be seen riding jockey-style on their mother's backs. Infants begin sampling solid food after about a week and will become increasingly independent after about a month. They return to their mom to nurse or sleep until they are weaned at about five or six months of age. All adult females participate in raising the offspring of the group.The median life expectancy for a ring-tailed lemur is about 16 years.

Ring-Tailed Lemurs were the Special Event Animals for the Autumn event, 2019. During the special event players were given quests to obtain two lemurs, each costing 2500 "leaves". Players can have up to 10 lemurs in one enclosure.

 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
 10

 Popularity, selling and release

 2
 3
 4

Return to Animal Page