Feeding
A coquerel's sifaka feeds on maple leaves in early fall. Click image for larger version.
Coquerel's Sifaka feed on young leaves, flowers, fruit, bark and dead wood in the wet season, and mature leaves and buds in the dry season. Leaves make up a significant portion of the sifaka diet both in the wild as well as in captivity. In fact, the digestive system of these folivorous primates requires that a certain percentage of the diet be in the form of browse. As many as 98 different plant species have been recorded in their diet. However, only 12 of these plants make up two thirds of the diet. Foraging activities occupy between 30 and 40% of the day.
During the warmer months, sifakas at the Lemur Center receive a daily selection of fresh browse harvested from nearby fields and forests. This browse consists of a variety of some of the ten different species of North Carolina leaves the sifakas enjoy. In the fall, four chest freezers are each filled with packages of sumac leaves, so that each of our sifakas will also receive leaves during the winter months.