麻豆约拍

Dideria is a Madagascan tree that is covered in spines, but it is also the feeding ground of a lemur called a sifaka. It must be very careful as it clambers around. But when it decides to really move they can travel very fast indeed, bouncing from branch to branch. Take-off must start sideways-on to their line of flight so they must twist their bodies in mid-air. Their hind legs then have to be swung forward to be used as shock absorbers as they land. Their back feet are long and narrow with an enormous big toe that allows them to lock on to a tree trunk as soon as they hit it. Then they are off again. And a female can do all this while carrying a baby. On the ground however, the method does not work quite so well. Very long legs and very short arms make it impossible to run on all fours so it must jump. But without trees to push away from, the leaps are rather shorter. Back in the trees, they have to move fast to escape the fossa. The fossa is just as fast as the sifaka but its technique is rather different. Its ancestors were not primates like those of the sifaka but a kind of giant mongoose, so it still runs on all four feet. But when it comes to the long-jump the sifaka wins.