Red-fronted Brown Lemur

The red-fronted lemur (Eulemur rufifrons), also known as the red-fronted brown lemur or southern red-fronted brown lemur, is a species of lemur from Madagascar. Until 2001, it was considered a subspecies of the common brown lemur, E. fulvus. In 2001, E. fulvus was split into several separate species, including Eulemur rufus, in which this species was included. In 2008, E. rufus was split into two species, the red lemur (E. rufus) and the red-fronted lemur (E. rufifrons). E. rufus covers the population on the west coast north of the Tsiribihina River and E. rufifrons covers the population on the west coast south of the Tsiribihina River and the population in eastern Madagascar. The species split was based on genetic and morphological evidence. Mitochondrial DNA analysis indicates that E. rufifrons may be more closely related to the common brown lemur (E. fulvus), white-headed lemur (E. albifrons) and Sanford's brown lemur (E. sanfordi) than it is to E. rufus.

Abridged excerpt from the Wikipedia article Red-fronted lemur, by its authors, under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.