The golden-crowned sifaka is a medium-sized lemur characterized by mostly white fur, prominent furry ears and a golden-orange crown. It is one of the smallest sifakas, weighing around 3.5 kg (7.7 lb) and measuring approximately 90 cm (35 in) from head to tail. Like all sifakas, it is a vertical clinger and leaper, and its diet includes mostly seeds and leaves. The golden-crowned sifaka lives in groups of around five to six individuals, with groups containing a balanced number of adult males and females. Its binomial name, Propithecus tattersalli, denotes its discoverer, Ian Tattersall, who first spotted it in 1974. Found in gallery, deciduous, and semi-evergreen forest, its restricted range includes forest fragments around the town of Daraina in northeast Madagascar. Its estimated population is between 6,000 and 10,000 individuals. Forest fragmentation, habitat destruction, poaching, slash-and-burn agriculture, and other human factors threaten its existence, and it is listed by the IUCN Red List as Endangered. Lawlessness resulting from the 2009 political coup in Madagascar led to increased poaching of this species, and many were sold to local restaurants as a delicacy.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden-crowned_sifaka
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1894:
London's Tower Bridge (pictured), a combined bascule and suspension bridge over the River Thames, opened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Bridge
1908:
A massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, knocking over 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
1934:
Adolf Hitler violently purged members of the Sturmabteilung, its leader Ernst Röhm, and other political rivals on the Night of the Long Knives, executing at least 85 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
1963:
A car bomb intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco killed seven police and military officers near Palermo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciaculli_massacre
1971:
The Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft suffered an uncontrolled decompression during preparations for reentry, killing cosmonauts Vladislav Volkov, Georgiy Dobrovolskiy and Viktor Patsayev—the only human deaths to occur in space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
miserabilist: One who is unhappy, or extols being miserable as a virtue; a philosopher of pessimism. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/miserabilist
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence. Yet I believe you, messengers. There, where the world is turned inside out, a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams. --Czesław Miłosz https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz