Nutrition in indri
Mentors: Fanomezana Ratsoavina
& Lydia Greene
PhD Student: Tsiky Mamy
Razafimanantsoa
Timeline: Sept 2025 - Apr 2026
Background: The indri, one of Madagascar's iconic lemurs, lives only in the eastern rainforests. Ambohidray is one site where wild indri currently live; however, the forest is fragmented, and many social groups are confined to small habitats. Here, we aim to better understand the lives of indri in the forest fragments of Ambohidray, by tracking their foraging behavior, and determining the identity and nutritional content of their top foods. These results will help us understand how indri meet their energetic and nutritional requirements in forest fragments.​
Background
​Outcomes: This initiative is contributing to Tsiky Mamy's PhD thesis.
Updates from the field
This figure shows the percentage of foraging time by the indri at Ambohidray on different plant families.
Tsiky Mamy and the field team successfully completed data collection between August and October, 2025! In total, they collected 150 hours of behavioral observation on Ambohidray's indri (and sifakas). They also collected dozens of plant samples for nutritional analyses.​​
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Preliminary results show that the indri forage primarily for leaves of 25 plant species in 13 families. About 70% of their foraging time is spent on leaves from Lauraceae (Cryptocarya cassifolia, C. cryptoides, Tina conjugata, Aspidostemon conceidus and Ocotea perforata) and Clusiaceae (Symphonia urophylla, Calophyllum drouhardii, and Uapaca densifolia). All of these tree species are very abundant in the forest fragments at Ambohidray.
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The next steps are to conduct nutritional analyses of plant samples and to write up these results for scientific publication.