It's often silly-faces-time (™️) when it comes to Crowned Lemurs

Adult size: 2.1 - 2.5 lbs (1.1 - 1.3 kg)
Social structure: male-female pairs with offspring
Habitat: Forests and limestone rock formations (tsingy) in Northern Madagascar
Diet: fruit in the wet season, leaves, flowers, occasionally invertebrates in the dry season
Sexual maturity: 2 years
Mating: highly seasonal, infants are born in September and October in Madagascar, April through June in North Carolina
Gestation: 125 days
Number of young: 1-2 per season
IUCN Status: endangered

A male crowned lemur (right) grooms the dominant female (2nd pic)

Crowned lemurs exhibit a strict matriarchal social structure where the dominant female leads the troop. She holds exclusive priority access to the best food resources and sleeping spots. Males will even groom her and defer to her during foraging. --NIH website

Crowned lemur social groups typically consist of 5 to 6 individuals, which include multiple adult males and females. Dominance allows the matriarch to maintain her energy reserves, which are vital for nursing and rearing offspring. --Atlanta Zoo

So evidently these cuties (and cousins of ours) work like meerkats in terms of social hierarchy. I first learned about such watching the lovely, excellent Meerkat Manor documentary TV show. More than just about any other animal docu I've ever watched, it gave a frank, nuanced look at the daily lives of meerkats, to the point that it almost seemed like a soap opera at times.

The first season is available to watch for free, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIrl2otzxic&list=PLoryjdpCxlhWOoMFARDuU6Ih8jEngv1w1

Note: despite the two animals looking somewhat similar, lemurs belong to the Primate order, and mongooses to the Carnivoran order, specifically the Feliform (cat-shaped carnivores) suborder. The other major suborder in Carnivora is of course the Caniforms (dog-shaped carnivores).

Duke U. in N. Carolina runs a "lemur center" and put together a nice web intro here:
https://lemur.duke.edu/...

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anon6789 2 points a day ago

Huh...

Hyena garbage dispoal cat.

Civet is coffee bean cat.

Binturong is proto-cat.

Mongoose is danger noodle cat.

Meanwhile...

Bear is danger dog.

Seal is sea puppy.

Walrus is big tooth dog.

Skunk is stink puppy.

Raccoon is trash dog.

And otter is fish breath puppy.

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JohnnyEnzyme 3 points a day ago

Great Caniform-Feliform chart!

I also get a kick out of how a couple members of each branch evolved to be their opposites, so to speak. For example, hyenas are unusually 'dog-like' cat-forms, while red pandas are unusually 'cat-like' dog-forms.

It's something of a convergent evolution thing, not unlike Australasia's marsupials evolving to take on roles that we see in placental mammals. So they devolved their own 'versions' of cats, lions, dogs, rodents and that sort of thing.

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anon6789 3 points a day ago

Yeah, that binturong I never thought of as really too cat or doglike, but though they're the oldest branch of feliform, they look a lot like the raccoon in the face now looking at them side by side though the raccoon is on the dog-like side.

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JohnnyEnzyme 3 points a day ago

Wow, what a creature. oO
I don't think we had any when I worked at the zoo, and I don't remember seeing any animal docus about them, either. So many of the Carnivorans are friend-shaped, and yet even if homed from birth, I think most wouldn't make good pets due to a variety of reasons. Foxes for example, with their stinky urine, high motors and shrieky voices, perhaps. (lookin' at you, Fennec Foxes)

I imagine you might have seen some egregious cases over the years of negligent ownership of exotic or illegal species...

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