Giant mouse lemur

Giant mouse lemurs are members of the strepsirrhine primate genus Mirza. They are native to Madagascar, where they are found in the western dry deciduous forests and further to the north in the Sambirano Valley and Sahamalaza Peninsula. They reproduce once a year, with two offspring born after a 90-day gestation. Their lifespan in the wild is thought to be five to six years.

About Giant mouse lemur in brief

Giant mouse lemurs are members of the strepsirrhine primate genus Mirza. They are native to Madagascar, where they are found in the western dry deciduous forests and further to the north in the Sambirano Valley and Sahamalaza Peninsula. The northern species is generally more social than the southern species, particularly when nesting, though males and females may form pair bonds. They reproduce once a year, with two offspring born after a 90-day gestation. Their lifespan in the wild is thought to be five to six years. Both species are listed as endangered due to habitat destruction and hunting. Despite breeding easily, they are rarely kept in captivity. Predators include the Madagascar buzzard, Madagascar owl, fossa, and the narrow-striped mongoose. Giant mouse le murs are vocal, although they also scent mark using saliva, urine, and secretions from the anogenital scent gland. The first species of giant mouse lemur was described by the French naturalist Alfred Grandidier in 1867 based on seven individuals he had collected near Morondava in southwestern Madagascar. In 2005, the northern population was declared a new species, and in 2010, the World Wide Fund for Nature announced that a southwestern population might also be anew species. The largest testicle size relative to its body size among all primates is atypical among leMurs for breeding year-round instead of seasonally. They weigh approximately 300g, and have a long, bushy tail.

Unlike other lemur species, they do not enter a state of torpor during the dry season, and do not forage alone at night for fruit, tree gum, insects, and small vertebrates. They have a lifespan of 5 to 6 years, and are protected under CITES Appendix I, which prohibits commercial trade. The Duke Lemur Center coordinated the captive breeding of an imported collection of the northern species, which rose from six individuals in 1982 to 62 individuals by 1989, but the population fell to six by 2009 and was no longer considered a breeding population. In 1870, British zoologist John Edward Gray assigned them to their own genus, Mirza, but it was not widely accepted until the 1990s, which followed the revival of the genus by American paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall in 1982. The following year, the German naturalist Hermann Schlegel and Dutch naturalist François Pollen independently described the same species and coincidentally gave it the same specific name, coquereli, on an individual from around the Bay of Ampasindava in northern Madagascar. This classification was widely ignored in the early 1930s and later rejected in the 1930s by zoologists. In 1953, British anatomist William Osomman also placed Coquerel’s giant mouse Lemur into its own genus. Unlike their specimen in Microcebus, they placed all species on the genus Cheirogaleus based on the classification of their similarities with the greater dwarf lemur.

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