Repository of Randomness: The Malagasky Fat Tailed Dwarf Lemur

I feel like I must apologize to the lemurs because I am not judging them. They should be proud of their look and they're adorable. I mean no offence when I call them chubby.

Isn't this an adorable picture of a lemur? It's taken from the Live Science link below. The tail here isn't as, uh, fluffy, as some tails get before they go to sleep for a few months, but it's not nearly as thin as several other picture I've seen. The whole lemur is about the size of a hamster, so it can be a bit hard to find them, which means we'll have to forgive them.

This particular type of Lemur is the only known hibernating primate. They go into torpor/hibernation for up to 7 months while there isn't as much food around, and have been known to sleep deeply enough that their bodies cool to match their surroundings, their hearts beat only 10 times a minute, and they breathe only once every few minutes.

This is just a sleeping Lemur from the iNaturalist link below. It's not in torpor, but I still thought it was cute. If you saw one in torpor, you'd probably think they were dead, but they aren't. Instead, they are in torpor, or hibernation. To prepare, they eat more food and store up fat until their lovely tails are 40% of their weight. Please take a moment to imagine carrying around a tail that weighed over a third of your weight. That would be exhausting.

This tail comes from the Duke Center for Lemurs, and shows how large they can get, though it isn't the best because it doesn't show the rest of the lemur.

So, before I sign off on this post, I also wanted to point out that these lemurs have the females in charge of things. They establish their range and the guys can go further abroad, but the females are the ones in charge.

There are a lot more interesting things about these tiny lemurs, but you'll have to go learn more on your own. They're adorable and you should definitely go look for more pictures of them, but that's up to you now. Have fun, and let me know if you find something else I should have mentioned here.