Red-ruffed Lemur (Varecia rubra) Fact Sheet: Diet & Feeding

Highly frugivorous (from Vasey 2006 unless otherwise noted)

• Reliant on ripe fruit
  • Single most important food item in every season (Vasey 2002; Vasey 2004)
  • Foods are patchily distributed in space and time

Other food items (from Vasey 2004)

• Flowers
  • During pregnancy, females spend less time feeding on flowers than males (Vasey 2002)
• Leaves
  • Prefer new (young) growth
  • More commonly eaten by females
    • Consumption increases during lactation

Food acquisition (from Pereira et al. 1988)

• Mouth and hands secure food items
  • Hands pull foods toward the mouth
    • Do not gather fruit or leaves with hands to place into the mouth, in the wild
    • Will hold food items in their hand and take bites, in managed care (M Whipple, personal communication)

Often hang suspended while feeding (Pereira et al. 1988; Vasey 1999)

• Grasp tree limbs with the hind feet (Pereira et al. 1988)

Chew food between cheek teeth (from Pereira et al. 1988)

Lemur hanging suspended. ZOOM Erlebniswelt, Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Image credit: Mathias Appel at Flickr. Public domain.

Pereira et al. (1988)
Vasey (1999)
Vasey (2002)
Vasey (2004)
Vasey (2006)