Indri

Appearance

Its large greenish eyes and black face are framed by round, fuzzy ears. The silky fur is mostly black with white patches along the limbs, neck, crown, and lower back. The face is bare with pale black skin, and it is sometimes fringed with white fur.

Along with the diademed sifaka, the Indri is the largest lemur still in existence. Both have average weights of about 6.5 kg.

Range and habitat

This lemur inhabits the lowland and montane forests along the eastern coast of Madagascar, from the Réserve Spéciale d'Anjanaharibe-Sud in the north to the Mangoro River in the south. It is a diurnal tree-dweller related to the sifakas and, like all lemurs, it is native to Madagascar. The main threats faced by the Indri are habitat destruction and fragmentation due to slash and burn agriculture, fuelwood gathering, and logging.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet and breeding

The Indri practices long-term monogamy, seeking a new partner only after the death of a mate. The Indri is herbivorous and primarily folivorous.

It prefers young, tender leaves, but will also eat seeds, fruits, and flowers. Female Indri seem to have greater preference for immature leaves than males do and spend more time foraging among them.

In crisis

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as "critically endangered". The Indri is a critically endangered species. While population estimates are uncertain (1,000 – 10 000 individuals), the population appears to be rapidly shrinking and may diminish by 80% over the next three generations (~36 years).

The primary threats to its existence are habitat destruction and fragmentation due to slash and burn agriculture, fuelwood gathering, and logging. People whose fady forbid them from eating the Indri may still hunt the lemurs and sell their flesh, and those forbidden to kill the Indri may still purchase and consume them.

CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.

Indri is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Indri, Wikidata item Q203868. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.