Abstract
The aim of the present study was to assess the occurrence of spontaneous food preferences in zoo-housed ring-tailed lemurs and to analyze whether these preferences correlate with nutrient composition. Using a two-alternative choice test three female and one male Lemur catta were repeatedly presented with all possible binary combinations of 12 types of food which are part of their diet in captivity and found to display the following rank order of preference: apple > sweet potato > melon > beetroot > carrot > egg > eggplant > pumpkin > cucumber > tomato > cabbage > mealworm. Correlational analyses revealed a highly significant positive correlation between this food preference ranking and the total carbohydrate and sucrose contents of the foods (p < 0.01, respectively). No other significant correlations with any other macro- or micronutrient were found. These results suggest that zoo-housed ring-tailed lemurs are not opportunistic, but selective feeders with regard to maximizing their net gain of energy as only the content of carbohydrates, but not the contents of total energy, proteins or lipids significantly correlated with the displayed food preferences. Further, we found that ring-tailed lemurs that were raised on a vegetable-based diet did not significantly differ in their food preferences, and in particular in their predilection for food items high in carbohydrates, from animals that had previously been fed a fruit-based diet. This suggests that the lemurs’ preference for carbohydrate-rich food items may be innate and not affected by experience with different diets.
Highlights
The diet of most primate species includes a wide variety of plant foods [1]
The results of the present study demonstrate that zoo-housed ringtailed lemurs display marked food preferences in a two-alternative choice test using cultivated fruits and vegetables as well as foods of animal origin
The results show that these preferences significantly correlated positively with the contents of total carbohydrates and sucrose of the food items used, but not with total energy content
Summary
Most primates are highly selective feeders and display marked preferences for certain types of plants or plant parts [2, 3] Field studies on both primates and other herbivores suggest that their food choices can be attributed to two main factors: the nutritional and/or toxic content of the plant part in question [4, 5] and its relative spatial and temporal distribution [6]. Additional factors such as body size or gut morphology are thought to affect food selection in primates but are commonly regarded as evolutionary adaptations to the two main factors mentioned above [7]. This, in turn, makes it difficult to identify those nutrients that herbivorous animals may actively seek
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