Sunning is a morning ritual for most lemurs. The most familiar image is that of the ring-tailed lemur sitting up in “yoga” pose with arms at side and hands dangling near knees. It is believed that this helps the animals regulate their body temperature.
Eye contact – or lack of it – says a lot with lemurs.
Staring: A threat display, both within a group and to outsiders. It’s a first step to see what they are dealing with: Will staring drive it away, or not? Sifakas and ring-tails may stare as a group, as they “mob” an approaching intruder.
Lowered eyelids: Showing submission to a staring lemur.
How a lemur carries itself indicates a dominant or submissive attitude.
Erect posture: Confidence; dominance display, often with head up.
Hunched posture: Indicates submission, “I’m no problem.”
The Bump: A lemur will exert its dominance by simply bumping another lemur out of a good sunning spot or other desired space.
Facial expressions can mean many things.
Mouth open, teeth covered: “Back off.”
Mouth open, teeth covered, eyes wide open: “Let’s play!”
Grinning: “I’m no threat,” or, “What’s that strong smell?”
Specific moves and rituals cement friendly relations or cool down tensions.
Body contact: Two animals or more get as close to each other as possible, during sleep or siestas. The type of contact can depend on where it happens. Front-to-back, “train car” style, for example, works well on a long branch. A lemur ball – in which several animals clump their bodies together into a ball, tails outside – is good in a crook of a tree.
Nose greeting: Brief nose-to-nose touch, signifying friendly relations.
Play: All ages play. The jump and wrestle move is common – an instigator leaps onto another group member, then wrestling begins. Face-to-face batting of hands and feet and mock biting of ears can be done hanging upside down from branches. Mock cuffing of another with a hand is an invitation to play.
Grooming is important bonding behavior among many primates. But while other species use their hands, lemurs uniquely use their lower teeth as combs to rake or scrape through the fur of another – or themselves.
Personal hygiene also includes a lemur’s use of a straight “toilet claw” on one foot to clean out its ears.
Lemurs are unique among primates for their greater reliance on scent for communication. Depending on the species, scent glands are found on wrists, throats, or hindquarters. Urine is also used to say “I was here.” Scent-marking essentially serves to self-advertise and set invisible territory boundaries.
Male ring-tailed lemurs even have stink-fights – they rub their tails with scent via their wrist glands and then wave their tails with their hands to waft their smell toward other males in an olfactory test of dominance.
Especially during breeding seasons, tension within a lemur group can run high. Physical interactions assert or test dominance, or flare up when animals are simply annoyed with each other. Injuries can occur in some species but are rarely serious or fatal.
Cuffing: Swatting with hand; a full cuff includes tearing out of fur.
Intention cuffing: “Talk to the hand”: lifting hand up chest-high, toward offending party, to warn them to back off.
Poking: Use of nose/muzzle to poke at or butt away another animal. Females often use this on juvenile lemurs or on other females approaching their infants.
Biting: Using teeth to discourage interaction. Ring-tailed lemurs kick it up a notch, as they use sharp canine teeth to slash an intruding lemur or a fellow group member in “jump-fights.”
