My name is Indri

Indri, that's my nickname...being curious about what my name,  i type in on the search box...and the result shows it was the name of a lemur..the biggest one (T.T...somehow i'm like hit by a nail in my heart coz i'm slighly above normal weight..hehe).

As you can see the picture is above...that's indri from latin word indri indri and from family indriidae (funny how's my name keep repeated from family-genus up to species..just don't tell me there'll be a supspecies indri also ;) )

Being the largest lemur in Madgascar (endemic, In the 1900s it was common throughout Madagascar but now the indri is only found in the eastern side of the island in the rainforests, from Mangoro River north to Sambava ) it has the size of 64-72 cm with tail 4-5 cm and average weight of 6-9.5 kg. Unfortunately indri is classified as endangered species by IUCN RedList 2007 and was listedon appendix 1 of CITES (which mean you can't trade them without strict permission).

Indri is the only lemur with vestigial tail, vestigial means a characteristic, often reduced in form, with little or no contemporary use, but derived from one which was useful and well developed in an ancestral form. It have dense, silky black and white fur, with their patterns varying between populations on the island, the northern edge Indri's color tend to be darker than southern. Its ears are black and tufted, and they have long muzzles, long slender legs and short arms.

Indri is arboreal, meaning it spend most of the time on the tree. It get fantastic adaptation to live on the tree that allow it to climb trees and leap from one to another such as large hands and feet, small oppossable thumbs and large opposable toes. It got powerful legs which one third longer than their arm and are able to propel them through the forest canopy in an upright position over distances of up to ten meters.

Indri is active during the day and inhabits montane and coastal rainforest from sea level to 1800 meters, but it lives typically in montane forest where it can find food such as leaves, flowers and fruits. Sometimes indri also comes down to forest floor to cross small treeless area or to eat soil. On the ground they cannot walk on all fours and so move around on their back legs, standing upright and holding their arms outstretched for balance, skipping in a unique fashion through the forest.

Indri lives in a group of two or five individuals consisting of two adults and their offspring. Like ring-tailed lemur female indri is more dominant than male, the females usually larger in size than male and have an appearance very similar to the juveniles. why is it so? because female indri need to forage for more food to feed themselves and their young. while male indri's task is to defend the territory and mark the boundaries with urine and secretions from its glands in the muzzle. The indri has a characteristic call, consisting of a series of howls, which serve to unite groups, express territoriality, and convey information about age, sex and reproductive ability.

Breeding is seasonal, followed by a gestation period of more than five months. The female only gives birth to single offspring at a time, which develop more rapidly than the young of comparable sized primates. The young are born with the same coloration and features as the adult indris and are carried across the belly and later on the females back. Infant mortality is high, with 50 percent of infants dying before they are two years old from falls, injuries or illnesses, and sexual maturity comes late, after nine years for females. The fact that females only reproduce once every two to three years and that there are high infant mortality rates, adds to their population problem; their relatively slow breeding cycles cannot compete with their declining numbers.

The indri is one of the most endangered species of lemur on Madagascar, and one of the most threatened primates in the world. They live by the coast, where forests have become so fragmented that they are almost too small to sustain viable populations. The main threat is slash-and-burn agriculture, a practice that continues even in protected areas. Forests are also cut down for fuel and timber as human populations increase. Hunting of the indri is a taboo in many areas on the island, so this species does not suffer as much as other lemurs from trapping, although sometimes it is killed for food. Despite this, the indri is a seriously endangered species and will almost certainly face extinction in the next 100 years if conservation efforts do not succeed.

The indri has never been bred successfully in captivity. Protection of their natural habitat is therefore imperative to ensure that they are not lost forever. Unfortunately there is no easy answer to Madagascar’s conservation problems. Despite the indri being endangered, Madagascar’s increasing human population needs space and resources and inevitably this erodes natural habitats. This problem is made worse because Madagascar is an island; this therefore limits the area that men and wildlife can expand into. Conservation plans have designated some areas of the island to be protected from deforestation, but there is evidence that forest clearing continues inside the parks. It would be sad indeed to see the indri populations, once so prevalent, dwindle away to nothing.

source : http://www.arkive.org/indri/indri-indri/image-G8187