Otto's sportive lemur (''Lepilemur otto''), or the Ambodimahabibo sportive lemur, is a
sportive lemur
The sportive lemurs are the medium-sized primates that make up the family Lepilemuridae. The family consists of only one extant genus, ''Lepilemur''. They are closely related to the other lemurs and exclusively live on the island of Madagascar. ...
endemic to
Madagascar
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
. Like all members of the genus Lepilemur, it is solitary, nocturnal and largely
folivorous. It is threatened by habitat loss and hunting.
Taxonomy and phylogenetics
Otto's sportive lemur was described in 2007 from tissue samples, hair samples and
morphometrics
Morphometrics (from Greek μορΦή ''morphe'', "shape, form", and -μετρία ''metria'', "measurement") or morphometry refers to the quantitative analysis of ''form'', a concept that encompasses size and shape. Morphometric analyses are co ...
collected from live individuals in 2004. The species was recognized as new to science based primarily through genetic evidence. The specific epithet ''otto'' honors
Michael Otto for his monetary donations to lemur research and conservation.
Genetic analyses show Otto's sportive lemur to be the outgroup to a clade containing
Grewcock's sportive lemur and
Milne-Edwards' sportive lemur.
Description
Otto's sportive lemur has a grey-brown back and a grey to creamy underside. A dark stripe runs from the uper skull down the spine and ending before the tail. The tail varies from grey-brown to deep brown, and sometimes has a white tip. The face and forehead is grey.
The species differs genetically from its closest relatives, and differences in the
NADH4 gene and
D-loop region were used as primary evidence that it was a new species in its original description.
Distribution and habitat
Otto's sportive lemur is only known from
dry deciduous forest
The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...
at its
type locality of
Ambodimahabibo and three other nearby sites. The species is naturally bounded by the
Mahajamba River in the west and the
Sofia river
The Sofia is a river of northwestern Madagascar. It flows through the Sofia Region. The source is at the Tsaratanana Massif at an altitude of 1784 metres. It has a length of .
Its mouth is in the Indian Ocean in the Boriziny-Vaovao District (Por ...
in the north, beyond which other ''
Lepilemur'' species occur.
Its area of occurrence is estimated to be 3,770 km
2.
Threats and conservation
Otto's sportive lemur is severely threatened by forest degradation and conversion due to
shifting agriculture, and hunting by humans. It is only known to occur in one protected area, the
Forest Corridor of Bongolava. However, this area and the entire area of the species' occurrence has experienced severe deforestation and
habitat fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. Causes of habitat fragmentation include geological proces ...
.
Urgent research is needed to quantify population size and viability for the species.
References
Sportive lemurs
Mammals described in 2007
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