'Nursery nests' are better for survival of young black-and-white ruffed lemurs

Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - 08:00 in Biology & Nature

Young Malagasy black-and-white ruffed lemurs are more likely to survive when they are raised in communal crèches or "nursery nests" in which their mothers share the draining responsibility of feeding and caring for their offspring. This is according to anthropological research on lemur infant care by Andrea Baden and colleagues of Yale University. The study, published in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, describes a rare case in which fitness differences, such as infant survival, between cooperative and non-cooperative lemurs are observed.

Read the whole article on Physorg

More from Physorg

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net