Distribution.—Coquerel's Dwarf-Lemur, or the "Sisiba," as the natives call it, is found round Passandava Bay, near Mouroundava, on the south-west coast of Madagascar.
Habits.—The Sisiba, like its congeners, is nocturnal and arboreal, constructing in the trees a nest of twigs. It feeds on fruits and leaves.
THE FAT-TAILED LEMURS. GENUS OPOLEMUR.
Opolemur, J. E. Gray, P. Z. S., 1872, p. 853.
The term Opolemur, by which this genus is designated, is not altogether appropriate, and is, indeed, even somewhat misleading. It was applied in the first instance to the typical species on account of the thickened base of its tail, which in the type-specimen was a very conspicuous character. The deposit of fat by which this thickening was caused was not then known to be merely transitory—a store of food collected at the base of the tail and on other parts of the body, to supply the needs of the animal during the arid and foodless season, when it retires into a state of torpidity. It is now known that other species of this sub-family (as we have seen above in the case of the Mouse-Lemurs), which are generically distinct from Opolemur, share this peculiarity.
The two species included in this genus are intermediate between the Mouse-Lemurs and the Dwarf-Lemurs, and are really more nearly related to the former than to the latter. The skull is flat and depressed as in Chirogale, and the brain-case small and almost vertical behind. The posterior foramina in the palate are small. In respect to their dentition, the cusps of the upper molars are blunter and shorter than in the Mouse-Lemurs, but less so than among the Dwarf-Lemurs; the hind inner cusps of the anterior and median molars are large, and the ridge from the inner cusp is less intimately joined to the two outer cusps than in the Dwarf-Lemurs.
I. SAMAT'S FAT-TAILED LEMUR. OPOLEMUR SAMATI.
Chirogalus samatii, Grandid., Rev. et Mag. de Zool., xx., p. 49 (1868).
Opolemur milii, Gray, P. Z. S., 1872, pp. 853-4, pl. lxx., fig. i. (in part).
Opolemur samati, Forsyth Major, Nov. Zool., vol. i., p. 18 (1894).