Critically Endangered
Sahamalaza sportive lemur
Lepilemur sahamalazensis
The Sahamalaza sportive lemur (Lepilemur sahamalaza) is a sportive lemur endemic to northern Madagascar.
Appearance
The color of the fur has elements of grey and red-brown, but this is variable depending on light conditions and possibly age of individuals. The lemur has lighter belly fur, that ranges from grey to creamy colored.
Individuals weigh 700–900 g (25–32 oz), with females being up to 200 g (7.1 oz) heavier than males. Head-to-body length is approximately 26 cm (10 in), and the tail is equally long.
Range and habitat
The Sahamalaza sportive lemur is endemic to the Sahamalaza Peninsula in northwestern Madagascar. The peninsula is part of a transition zone between the Sambirano region and the deciduous forest region. The peninsula has been subject to extensive anthropogenic deforestation, and no intact forests remain.
Networks such as the Association Européenne pour I'Etude et la Conservation des Lémuriens (AEECL) have worked continuously since 2001 to reserve space for the Sahamalaza - Iles Radama National Park. In September 2001 the Sahamalaza Peninsula has been declared a UNESCO biosphere reserve.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
The majority of the sportive lemurs' diet consists of leaves, but it will also take fruit, flowers, sap, bark and small invertebrates. Leaf-eating primates are rarely nocturnal, presumably because leaves are relatively low in sugars at night, since photosynthesis occurs at a lower rate or not at all.
The metabolic rates of Lepilemur species are amongst the lowest recorded in mammalian folivores, and they are highly adapted for surviving on this diet. During its nocturnal activities, the species was found to spend 47% of the time resting and 18% of the time feeding.
In crisis
The main anthropogenic threats to the species are habitat loss from deforestation (mostly logging) and subsistence hunting. The Sahamalaza - Iles Radama Nation Park was created in an effort to help increase the population and recoup habitat losses. A 2007 survey estimated a total population size of about 3000 individuals across multiple species within the Lepilemur complex, not all of that can be ascribed to this species.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) currently classifies the species as critically endangered, largely on the basis of this survey. It is believed that populations have increased as a result of protection.
Sahamalaza sportive lemur 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 Sahamalaza sportive lemur, Wikidata item Q388733. 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.
