Journal
FOLIA PRIMATOLOGICA
Volume 77, Issue 1-2, Pages 7-14Publisher
KARGER
DOI: 10.1159/000089692
Keywords
lemurs; primates; activity patterns; cathemerality; nocturnality; diurnality
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
During a field study in 1974 it was noticed, and further fieldwork in 1977 and 1980 confirmed, that the activity of the Mayotte lemur, Eulemur fulvus fulvus, is distributed fairly evenly throughout the daily 24-hour cycle: by a very crude approximation the daytime activity: rest ratio averages 0.271, while the night-time ratio averages 0.283. In 1978 I proposed the new word 'cathemeral', compounded from the Greek roots kappa alpha tau alpha (through) and eta mu epsilon rho alpha (the day), to describe this unusual activity pattern, though for reasons described in this article the term was not formally published until 1988. Since then cathemeral activity has been routinely recorded, with some variation, in species of the strepsirhine genera Eulemur and Hapalemur; and in one form or another it apparently also occurs, at least occasionally, among platyrrhines (species of Aotus and Alouatta) as well as among a variety of non-primate mammals. It may well thus be a more widespread activity pattern than earlier appreciated. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available