Gray Mouse Lemur - Behavior

Behavior

The gray mouse lemur is nocturnal, sleeping during the day in tree holes lined with leaf litter or purpose-built spherical nests constructed from dead leaves, moss and twigs. It usually forages alone at night, but may sleep in groups during the day, the composition of which depends on gender and season. Tree holes can be shared with up to 15 other individuals, although males tend to sleep alone while females tend to share nests.

All mouse lemurs are highly active at night, often scurrying like mice and leaping over 3 m (9.8 ft), using the tail as a balancing organ. When moving among the terminal branches of bushes and trees, they grip using all four feet and move with four legs. When on the ground, either to catch insects or cross short open areas, mouse lemurs hop like a frog. When hunting, the grey mouse lemur is known to catch invertebrates and small vertebrates with quick hand grasps.

In the dry season, the gray mouse lemur faces the challenge of exploiting sparsely distributed feeding resources efficiently. Results of a recent study on this showed that the gray mouse lemur does not move around randomly, but rather use spatial cues to find food resources in the absence of sensory cues, and that they seem to reuse common, highly efficient routes with regard to travel distance. It is believed that rather than using a route-based network, the gray mouse lemur has some sense of mental representation of their spatial environment, which they use to find and exploit food resources.

Foraging behavior is often slow, with height and direction changing continuously. Predation of insects occurs primarily on the ground. Before descending, the ear pinnae move alternately to help pinpoint the precise location of their prey. Insects are captured during a rapid dash across the leaf litter and are transported by mouth up into the relative safety of the branches. Studies with captive gray mouse lemurs have shown that vision is primarily used for prey detection, although the other senses certainly play a role in foraging.

The gray mouse lemur is omnivorous, feeding primarily on fruit and invertebrates. Local populations appear to specialize on locally available fruit. At both Marosalaza and Mandena, beetles are the primary insect prey, although moths, praying mantids, fulgorid bugs, crickets, cockroaches, and spiders are also eaten. Less than half the diet consists of insects, with fruit making up a slightly larger fraction. This lemur also consumes flowers, gums and nectar from Euphorbia and Terminalia trees, leaves (Uapaca sp.), exudates (Homopteran larvae secretions), and small vertebrates such as tree frogs, geckos, and chameleons. Its diet is seasonally varied and diverse in content, giving it a very broad feeding niche compared to other species such as the Madame Berthe's mouse lemur. Therefore it is affected more by food availability than by niche partitioning where sympatry occurs.