Lemurs named world's most endangered mammals thanks to destruction of their tropical forest habitat on Madagascar.
A shocking new study has found that Madagascar's lemurs have become the most endangered animals on the planet.
The destruction of tropical rainforest due to illegal logging and hunting has pushed the primates to the brink of extinction, according to conservationists.
The devastating assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission,this week revealed the primates are probably the most endangered group of vertebrates on Earth.
More than nine in ten of the 103 known lemur species are threatened, in Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital, according to livescience.com.
The survey results mean lemurs are the most endangered animal compared to all other mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and bony fish.
Scientists highlighted that Madagascar's economy was reliant on attracting tourists interested in the island's biodiversity, and if lemurs were made severely reduced it would hit the country's income and exacerbate the factors leading to their demise.
A few of the most spectacular species labeled 'critically endangered' this week are the indri, the largest of the lemurs, a practitioner of life-long monogamy and a sacred species in Madagascar considered to be the ancient 'brother' of humans; Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, the world's smallest primate weighing in at just 30 grams; and the blue-eyed black lemur, the only primate species other than humans to have blue eyes. The northern sportive lemur may be rarest of all, with just 18 known individuals left.
