Observations of daytime activity in the nocturnal northern giant mouse lemur (Mirza zaza)

Daniel Hending,Heriniaina Randrianarison,Marc Holderied,Sam Cotton,Grainne Mccabe

doi:10.1163/1568539x-bja10054

Daniel Hending, Heriniaina Randrianarison + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1163/1568539x-bja10054

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Journal: Behaviour	Publication Date: Dec 14, 2020
Citations: 1	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Bristol, University of Antananarivo

Abstract

Abstract We provide an anecdote of daytime activity within the northern giant mouse lemur (Mirza zaza), a small threatened primate that has always been considered strictly nocturnal, in the Anabohazo forest of northwestern Madagascar. During the dry season, we witnessed two individual M. zaza travelling separately in the afternoon period of three different days. Our observations indicate that M. zaza may undertake activity that is essential for their survival within both the light and dark periods of a day-cycle, and our findings suggest that the activity cycle of this species may be highly flexible. These observations have important implications to understand the evolution of activity patterns in M. zaza, and these findings warrant future, long term studies to establish the annual activity patterns of M. zaza and to determine whether this species is potentially cathemeral and why.

Highlights

We provide an anecdote of daytime activity within the northern giant mouse lemur (Mirza zaza), a small threatened primate that has always been considered strictly nocturnal, in the Anabohazo forest of northwestern Madagascar
Cathemerality is defined as behaviour in which an organism undertakes significant amounts of their activity at irregular and sporadic intervals within both the daytime and night-time periods of a day (Tattersall, 1987), and many species have been observed to be active during both day and night, cathemeral activity is rare among primates in comparison to other mammals (Curtis & Rasmussen, 2006; Bennie et al, 2014; Donati et al, 2016)
Cathemeral activity is known to occur within several wild populations of lemur species, such as those of the Lemur (Donati et al, 2013), Eulemur (Donati et al, 2001, 2007; Schwitzer et al, 2007) and Hapalemur (Mutschler, 2002; Eppley et al, 2015) genera, and flexible activity cycles have been observed in Avahi (Campera et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

We provide an anecdote of daytime activity within the northern giant mouse lemur (Mirza zaza), a small threatened primate that has always been considered strictly nocturnal, in the Anabohazo forest of northwestern Madagascar. Adaptive, daytime, flexible behaviour, Madagascar, Mirza zaza.

Results

Conclusion