40 Fun Facts About Sifaka

The name sifaka, used by the people of Madagascar for these leaping lemurs, imitates which thing?

Their warning cry is an explosive, hissing shi-fak, repeated several times when danger appears on the ground. The dry-forest species make it; their rainforest cousins sound quite different.

Which PBS Kids series, first shown in 1999, had a leaping Coquerel's sifaka as its talking title character?

Zoboomafoo mixed footage of a real sifaka with a talking puppet and ran for 65 episodes. The show is credited with teaching millions of children what a lemur is.

When the trees are too far apart, sifakas come down and cross open ground in which unusual way?

Hopping sideways upright, with arms waving for balance, has earned sifakas the nickname dancing lemurs. They can cross more than 100 metres of open ground this way.

Which cat-like carnivore, found only on Madagascar, preys on sifakas and takes many of their infants?

Fossa attacks kill about 30% of infant Verreaux's sifakas. It is the only predator able to take adults of every living lemur species.

Which members of a sifaka group are dominant, eating first and even smacking those who get in the way?

The females take the best feeding spots while the males wait their turn. Such matriarchy is rare in the animal kingdom as a whole but common among lemurs.

Which all-white sifaka, the flagship animal of Marojejy National Park, is one of the rarest mammals on Earth?

Silky sifaka numbers are put at fewer than 1,000, with under 250 mature adults, and none is kept in any zoo. It lives at higher elevations than any other sifaka.

In a Malagasy legend that made sifakas sacred, a sifaka catches a falling boy who had climbed a tree for what?

Honey was the prize, but bees attacked the boy and he lost his grip on the branch. A large lemur swooped in and caught him, and killing one has been said to bring misfortune ever since.

When two friendly Coquerel's sifakas meet in the forest, they greet each other in which way?

Rubbing noses is the friendly hello. Neighbouring groups mostly keep out of each other's way, even where their home ranges overlap.

Some Coquerel's sifakas in forest enclosures in North Carolina happily eat which plant that gives people itchy rashes?

Poison ivy is on the menu for some of the sifakas that range free in the forest. Keepers also cut fresh redbud, tulip poplar and sweetgum for them every day in the warmer months.

Sifakas hurl themselves from one tree trunk to the next using only the strength of which part of the body?

Their hind legs are so long and powerful that one push can carry a sifaka more than 20 feet to the next trunk. The longest leaps between trees reach about 10 metres.

A newborn sifaka clings to its mother's belly, then after about a month spends more and more time where?

On her back, jockey style, is where a young sifaka rides from about four weeks old. By three or four months, mothers start nipping at infants to make them travel on their own.

Milne-Edwards's sifaka and its rainforest relatives signal danger on the ground with a loud call likened to what?

A sneeze is the closest match, and scientists write the sound as zzuss or vouiff. Recordings show that its structure differs from one individual to the next.

Which North Carolina university runs the lemur center that owns every Coquerel's sifaka in American zoos?

Duke University has kept lemurs since 1966, and its center is one of very few places to breed this delicate species. Other zoos hold their animals on loan from it.

Which Coquerel's sifaka, born in North Carolina in 1994, became the live-action star of a PBS Kids animal show?

Jovian filmed his scenes with his parents, Nigel and Flavia, as occasional stand-ins, and later fathered 13 offspring. He died of kidney failure in 2014, aged 20.

Coquerel's sifakas at a famous lemur center in North Carolina are named after which group of historical figures?

Roman emperors, empresses and consorts supply the names, which is how the colony came to include a Pompeia and a Charlemagne, known as Charlie.

Which near-tailless lemur, famous for its loud songs, is the largest living relative of the sifakas?

The indri belongs to the same family and matches the biggest sifaka at about 6.5 kg. Its songs can last more than three minutes and are answered by neighbouring groups.

Which sifaka, named for the white band of fur that frames its face, is the largest of the group?

Diademed sifaka adults average about 6.5 kg, which makes the species one of the two largest lemurs alive. A diadem is a jewelled headband.

Perrier's sifaka of northern Madagascar is covered in fur of which colour?

Almost all black, with a brownish tint underneath, Perrier's sifaka is known locally as ankomba joby, the black lemur. It is the smallest of the eastern sifakas.

In one Malagasy tale, a man named Radjako turned into a Perrier's sifaka after his wife hit him with what?

A spoon did it, in one version of the story. The Antankarana people call the species radjako after a legendary hero from whom they believe these sifakas descend.

Von der Decken's sifaka honours a German explorer who was the first European to attempt to climb which mountain?

Mount Kilimanjaro beat him twice, with bad weather stopping one climb at around 14,000 feet. He visited Madagascar in 1863, two years before he was killed in Somalia.

Pushing off a trunk, Milne-Edwards's sifaka makes which move in mid-air so that it faces its landing spot?

A half twist of 180 degrees turns the animal to face the tree ahead, with the arms and tail steering the spin. It swings them down again on landing, much like a long-jumper.

Which enlarged gut pouch, described as an overgrown appendix, lets sifakas ferment tough leaf fibre into nutrients?

Cecum microbes break down fibre, neutralise plant toxins and even make vitamins. A sifaka's whole gut is 14 to 15 times as long as its body.

Sifakas, like all lemurs, carry a special claw used for grooming on which toe of each foot?

The second toe bears the so-called toilet-claw. Sifakas also groom with a toothcomb, a row of lower front teeth that juts forward like a comb.

Some male Verreaux's sifakas carry which visible sign of heavy scent-marking, one linked to higher testosterone levels?

A stained chest comes from smearing gland secretions onto branches again and again. Males with clean fur there mark less and instead offer their companions more grooming.

In Malagasy culture, what is a fady, something that has long protected some sifakas from hunters?

A taboo on harming sifakas holds around the town of Daraina, partly because the animals look so human. Such customs are weakening as newcomers move in.

Which practice, known in Madagascar as tavy, has destroyed much of the forest that sifakas depend on?

Slash-and-burn farming clears land with fire, but the soil is soon exhausted and farmers push on into fresh forest. Fires that escape also eat away at the forest edge.

Illegal logging of which precious hardwood surged in Marojejy's sifaka forests after Madagascar's 2009 political crisis?

Rosewood felling opens up the canopy, which makes forest fires more likely and helps invasive species take root. Marojejy and Masoala national parks were hit hardest.

Sifakas have been seen eating soil from mounds built by which creatures, possibly to help them digest leaves?

Termites build the mounds, and the soil may add helpful gut microbes for breaking down cellulose. Milne-Edwards's sifakas also eat a fungus that grows underground.

Sifakas have been seen biting and scratching to fight off which kind of large snake in Madagascar's forests?

A boa is a powerful constrictor, yet sifakas have been seen driving one off. More often they rely on acrobatics high in the trees to stay out of reach.

When sifakas hear the roaring bark that signals a bird of prey overhead, how do they respond?

Look up and climb down is the drill when a raptor is about. A different call, given for hunters on the ground, sends sifakas looking down and climbing higher instead.

Which sifaka, found only around the town of Daraina, was not formally described by scientists until 1988?

Golden-crowned sifaka sightings began in 1974, when Ian Tattersall took the animal for a colour variant of a known species. It is now also called Tattersall's sifaka in his honour.

Coquerel's sifaka is named after Charles Coquerel, a French navy surgeon who collected which animals in Madagascar?

Insects were his speciality, and his collection is still kept in France's national natural history museum. A coua bird and a giant mouse lemur also carry his name.

Free-ranging Coquerel's sifakas at a North Carolina lemur center get which favourite food as a reward for coming inside?

Shelled peanuts are given out twice a week in the warmer months, when keepers call the animals in from the woods with two short blasts on a whistle.

The Bemaraha woolly lemur's Malagasy name, dadintsifaky, describes it as which relative of the sifakas?

Their grandfather is the meaning, a nod to how closely the animal resembles a sifaka. The small woolly lemurs belong to the sifakas' own family.

Most research on Milne-Edwards's sifaka takes place in which rainforest national park, created in 1991?

Ranomafana was set up after primatologist Patricia Wright found a new species of bamboo lemur there. Most of its study sifakas wear collars, and some carry tracking devices.

Unfamiliar male Verreaux's sifakas use which behaviour to break the ice with a group in the mating season?

Playing carries on into adulthood in this species, and researchers found it eases the tension when strange males turn up. Resident males started the games as often as the newcomers did.

On the PBS Kids show starring a Coquerel's sifaka, the real animal turned into a talking puppet after doing what?

Having a snack triggered the switch from live lemur to puppet in the opening segments. A Canadian puppeteer, Gord Robertson, performed the talking version.

At what time are sifakas mainly active, unlike the small woolly lemurs that share their family?

By day is when sifakas feed and travel through the trees. They spend long spells sunbathing, stretched out along the branches.

Like its closest relatives, Verreaux's sifaka has hands and feet with which unusual feature for a tree-dwelling primate?

Slight webbing joins the base of the fingers and toes, and it is more marked on the feet than on the hands. The same trait runs through the rest of the sifakas' family.

Male rainforest sifakas pile scent marks and tooth gouges onto certain favourite trunks, which researchers call what?

Totem trees build up because males hurry to cover the scent laid by other group members with their own. They gouge the bark with their lower front teeth first, leaving lasting scars.