Verreaux's sifaka is a day-active lemur of forests in western and southwestern Madagascar. It is known for clinging upright to tree trunks and leaping between branches.
Its white fur has a yellowish tint, contrasting with its hairless black face. Its hands and feet are also black.
In Kirindy Forest in western Madagascar, researchers studied five groups of Verreaux’s sifakas, 20 animals in total. Three groups lived in the forest interior and two at an edge beside savannah. From April to July 2012, they compared behaviour, food plants, home ranges, stress-related hormones measured from faeces, and birth records.
Sifakas at the edge spent more time travelling and less time feeding than groups in the forest interior, and they ate fruit less often. Their faecal stress-hormone levels were higher, and females had lower birth rates. Mean daily temperatures were similar at the two sites, although temperature rose across 450 m from the edge into the interior of the edge site. Edge groups also tended to have smaller home ranges and core areas.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
In Kirindy, sifakas survived and reproduced at the forest edge, while edge groups ate less fruit and had lower birth rates. As fragmentation increases the share of forest near an edge, this study provides evidence for considering forest interiors as well as edges in habitat planning.