nov.
General characteristics
This subfamily is proposed to subdivide the family Lemuridae into three subfamilies, which better express the mutual relatedness: subfamily Eulemurinae, subfamily Vareciinae and subfamily Lemurinae. Presently most primatologists consider that the hapalemurs are taxonomically closer to the genus Lemur than to the genus Eulemur. Thus, a case of splitting was thought to be necessary to separate the genera Lemur and Hapalemur from the genus Eulemur, taking into account several DNA-sequencing results (most of the work of Yoder especially Yoder and Irwin, 1999) as well as certain anatomical, cytogenetic and behavioral characters of these species (for example: Yoder, 1996, combined DNA and morphological data, phylo tree Yoder; Macedonia and Stanger, 1994, communications signals,phylo tree Macedonia & Stanger; Dutrillaux and Rumpler, 1995, karyotypic analysis,cladogram Dutrillaux & Rumpler; phylo tree Dutrillaux & Rumpler; Takahashi and Kondo, 1977; Rumpler and Dutrillaux, 1978; Rumpler and Dutrillaux, 1990; Petter et al., 1977).