Reproduction
A mother mongoose lemur and her female infant pose in a natural habitat enclosure. Click image for larger version.
In the wild, infants are born in mid-October. Infants cling to their mothers' bellies for the first 3 weeks, shifting only to nurse. At approximately 5 weeks of age, the young lemurs will take their first tentative steps away from their mothers. With this hint of independence, infants begin to taste solid food, sampling bits of whatever the other members of their group are eating. Nursing continues, in a steady decline in importance in the infant's diet, until the infant is weaned at approximately 5 - 6 months of age.