<\/p>
Arboreal primates spend much of their lives grappling with trees. But Verreaux\u2019s sifakas might be the only ones to spend hours at a time sitting on the ground with their arms wrapped around a tree trunk and their bellies pressed up against it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we saw the animals doing it, we were totally amazed,\u201d says Yale University\u2019s Chloe Chen-Kraus, lead author of a new report published in the International Journal of Primatology<\/em><\/a> that investigates the function of the bizarre behaviour. \u201cOur local guides had seen it before, but it hadn\u2019t been described in the scientific literature.\u201d<\/p>\n During her study in Madagascar\u2019s Bez\u00e0 Mahafaly Special Reserve, Chen-Kraus and her colleagues found evidence that hugging trees helps the lemurs<\/a> to cool down in hot conditions.<\/p>\n The behaviour occurred only when the ambient temperature exceeded 30\u00b0C, when the trunks of the hugged trees were three to five degrees cooler than the surrounding air and the higher branches.<\/p>\n \u201cThese trees are sucking cool water from deep in the ground, which is warmed by the surroundings as it rises up the trunk,\u201d says Chen-Kraus. \u201cSo, if the animals are willing to take the risk of coming all the way down, that gives them the greatest thermal advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n The risk is that sifakas are most vulnerable to predators at ground level. \u201cDomestic dogs are a big problem. The lemurs get really scared if they hear a dog barking, even if it\u2019s far off in the distance,\u201d says Chen-Kraus. \u201cThey\u2019re just more comfortable up in the trees if they\u2019re feeling threatened.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Main image: Tree hugging Verreaux\u2019s sifaka lemurs. \u00a9 Chloe Chen-Kraus<\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Stuart Blackman Published: Friday, 28 October 2022 at 12:00 am Arboreal primates spend much of their lives grappling with trees. But Verreaux\u2019s sifakas might be the only ones to spend hours at a time sitting on the ground with their arms wrapped around a tree trunk and their bellies pressed up against it. \u201cWhen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":21724,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/why-sifaka-lemurs-are-tree-huggers-scaled.jpg",1792,2560,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/why-sifaka-lemurs-are-tree-huggers-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/why-sifaka-lemurs-are-tree-huggers-210x300.jpg",210,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/why-sifaka-lemurs-are-tree-huggers-768x1097.jpg",768,1097,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/why-sifaka-lemurs-are-tree-huggers-717x1024.jpg",717,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/why-sifaka-lemurs-are-tree-huggers-1075x1536.jpg",1075,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/why-sifaka-lemurs-are-tree-huggers-1434x2048.jpg",1434,2048,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Friday, 28 October 2022 at 12:00 am Arboreal primates spend much of their lives grappling with trees. But Verreaux\u2019s sifakas might be the only ones to spend hours at a time sitting on the ground with their arms wrapped around a tree trunk and their bellies pressed up against it. \u201cWhen…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/21723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Learn more about lemurs:\u00a0<\/h4>\n
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