Template:Featurt airticle/Januar 2020
The ring-tailed lemur is a lairge strepsirrhine primate an the maist recognised lemur due tae its lang, black an white ringed tail. It belangs Lemuridae, ane o five lemur families, an is the anly member o the Lemur genus. Lik aw lemurs, it is endemic tae the island o Madagascar. Kent locally in Malagasy as maky ([makʲ] (
listen), spelled maki in French) or hira, it indwells gallery wids tae jaggy scrub in the soothren regions o the island. It is omnivorous an the maist terrestrial o lemurs. The ainimal is diurnal, bein active alanerly in daylicht oors.
As ane o the maist vocal primates, the ring-tailed lemur uises numerous vocalisations includin group cohesion an alarm caas. Experiments hae shawn that the ring-tailed lemur, in maugre o the lack o a lairge harn (relative tae simiiform primates), can organise sequences, unnerstaun basic arithmetic operations an preferentially select tuils based on functional qualities.
In maugre o reproducin readily in captivity an bein the maist populous lemur in zoos warldwide, numberin mair nor 2,000 individuals, the ring-tailed lemur is listed as endangered bi the IUCN Red List due tae habitat destruction an huntin for bush meat an the exotic pet tred.