A couple of ring-tails ready to use their charms on fruit bearing visitors.

Southern Parks: Berenty

The Berenty Reserve was created half a century ago by the d'Heaulme family as a private park; in the last twenty years it has been turned into a nature reserve cum hotel. It is the easiest way to see Lemur catta and Propithecus verreauxi in the wild.

Bordering the Mandrare river it is a small patch (100 hectares) of gallery and riverine forest in the middle of what used to be spiny forest and is now mostly sisal fields. There are six species of lemur in Berenty of which three are diurnal and practically unavoidable, and three are common and nocturnal. The three diurnal species are Lemur catta, Eulemur fulvus (rufus, collaris & rufus x collaris) and Propithecus verreauxi, or the ring-tailed lemur, the brown lemur and Verreaux's sifaka. The common nocturnal lemurs are Lepilemur mustelinus, Microcebus murinus and M. griseorufus (or the white-footed sportive lemur and the grey mouse lemur). Some research studies have reported that Cheirogaleus medius can also be found in the reserve, but none of the local guides have seen one.

When you arrive at the reserve, you will probably be greeted by a troop of ring-tailed lemurs (called maki by the Malgache) who will attempt to persuade you to give them bananas. If you want to distribute bananas to the animals this is the place to do it, do not take bananas into the forest. The animals will be better off if you refrain from feeding them though, since bananas are not particularly good for them. If you wander down the main trail in the morning or afternoon (the lemurs tend to sleep in the heat of the day) you will probably find other ringtails–often walking down the trail, quite unconcerned about your presence. Up in the trees you may hear a grunting, and if you pay attention you will find the brown lemurs foraging higher in the canopy. If you turn left when you reach the river and proceed a little way upstream you will come to a meadow with a large (Pithosolubium) tree in the center of it–this is probably the best place to find sifaka.