Northern sportive lemur
species of mammal

The northern sportive lemur (Lepilemur septentrionalis), also known as the Sahafary sportive lemur or northern weasel lemur, is a species of lemur in the family Lepilemuridae. It is endemic to Madagascar. As a result of severe ecological and human pressures, the lemur is classified as Critically Endangered (CR) by the IUCN Red List.
Taxonomy
The genus Lepilemur was initially thought to comprise only 2 species: L. mustelinus and L. ruficaudatus, with the latter subdivided into 2 subspecies. The genus was later reclassified as having only 1 species, mustelinus, with 5 subspecies. In 1977, Petter et al. increased the species number of the genus to 7, at which point the species L. septentrionalis was demarcated, and classified as having 4 subspecies. As 2 of these subspecies were not geographically distinct, the number of L. septentrionalis subspecies was eventually condensed to 2: L. s. septentrionalis and L. s. ankaranensis.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Northern sportive lemur” as species of mammal. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of mammal. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q233936. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1977.
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This entry incorporates text from “Northern sportive lemur” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.