Ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) use olfaction to locate distant fruit

Area of Science:

• Primate behavior
• Sensory ecology
• Olfactory navigation

Background:

• Primates often inhabit environments with limited visibility, making olfactory detection of resources adaptive.
• The ability of primates to track odor plumes from distant sources has been traditionally underestimated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the olfactory capabilities of strepsirrhine primates, specifically their ability to detect and navigate to hidden food sources using scent.
• To challenge the prevailing notion that primates lack the ability to track odor plumes.

Main Methods:

• Ring-tailed lemurs were tested in a semi-natural forest setting.
• Hidden containers with real or sham fruit (cantaloupe) were placed at varying distances from a lemur pathway.
• Lemurs' ability to locate the baited containers using only olfactory cues was assessed under different wind conditions.

Main Results:

• Lemurs successfully located the real cantaloupe when its scent plume reached the pathway.
• Lemurs did not find the sham cantaloupe, indicating scent detection was key.
• Observed behavior included air sniffing and movement towards the odor source, consistent with klinotaxis.

Conclusions:

• Untrained lemurs demonstrated the capacity to detect and navigate odor plumes in a complex olfactory environment.
• Olfaction is a viable sensory modality for primates to locate distant resources.
• Odor plume tracking may represent a crucial foraging strategy for strepsirrhine primates.