Scientific name: Hapalemur aureus
Conservation status:
Life expectancy: 12 years in the wild
Gestation period: 138 days
Lifestyle and Location:
- These little lemurs like damp forests with lots of bamboo which they can munch on. Bamboo makes up most of their diet.
- They live in groups of 2-6 lemurs and become fully mature at 2 years old.
- Golden bamboo lemurs are most active at dawn and dusk, and also sometimes during the night.
Appearance:
They are a medium sized bamboo lemur that have greyish-brown fur. Their muzzles are very short and they have round and hairy ears. They vary from 28-45 cm and weigh around 1.6 kg. It has been given the name ‘golden’ because they have golden/yellow fur on their faces, inner limb and belly.
Joss‘s Facts
- They have around 0.31 square miles of territory in groups of 2-6.
- Fully grown adults will eat around 500 g of bamboo each day and this contains about 12 times the lethal dosage of cyanide (an extremely toxic chemical) for most animals its size.
- Bamboo lemurs are the only primate that specialise on a bamboo diet.