Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

The black-and-white ruffed lemur was found to have rather similar thresholds across all the tested sugars, fitting well into the range of threshold values reported in other primates. V. variegata was also found to prefer sucrose (followed by fructose) over all other tested sugars, which is similar to the results from other primate species. The notion of a possible positive correlation between the degree of frugivory and sweet-taste sensitivity was not supported by the findings of this study. However, more effort is needed to develop the list of tested species as well as the list of tested sugars to enable more robust comparative analyses. Even though the results of this study should be considered preliminary due to a small sample size, the obtained taste preference performances of V. variegata are well needed considering the sparse data that currently exists on taste sensitivity for sugars in prosimians.