This lovely creature lives only on one island in the world. Lemurs are the world’s oldest living primates. They have been evolving on the island of Madagascar for approximately 40 million years and they flourished in isolation without much competition or major predators. However, the migrations of humans onto the island about 2,000 years ago led to lemurs being restricted to around 10% of the land.
Lemurs are considered the “creators of the forest”, fuelling the growth of plants in Madagascar forests. As fruit-lovers, they cannot digest fruit seeds; when lemurs travel throughout forests, they spread the seeds There are more than 100 lemur species and five families of living lemurs.
Sadly, more than 90 % of lemur species today are threatened with extinction, and 31% are categorized as critically endangered. The “jewel of Madagascar” is threatened by a myriad of environmental issues, hunting, climate change, and the exotic pet trade. They are running out of resources for survival, largely due to habitat destruction and degradation.
FACTS
The northern sportive lemur is the rarest in the world.
Lemurs have 2 tongues.
Apart from humans, lemurs are the only other primates that have blue eyes.
In Malagasy culture, lemurs are believed to have souls capable of getting revenge if wronged.
There are 112 different species of lemurs, and all are native to Madagascar.
Source: iucnredlist.org, earth.org, nationaltoday.com
LET'S FIGHT TO SAVE WORLD ECOSYSTEMS
VAKOVAKO will soon fight to save world ecosystems. 100 % of all donations given via our app to „WORLD ECOSYSTEMS“ area will by transfered to related NGOs. Let’s help them expand their activities together.