Flexible diet may help leaf-eating lemurs survive deforestation

A new study sequencing the genome of four species of sifakas (Propithecus), a genus of lemurs found in Madagascar's forests, reveals that these animals' taste for leaves runs all the way to their genes, which are also more diverse than expected for an endangered species. But they can also thrive on fruit and flowers, which may be an advantage over being strictly leaves-only or fruit-only in the face of forest fragmentation.