Mongoose lemur Mongoose lemur The mongoose lemur ("Eulemur mongoz") is a small primate in the family Lemuridae, native to Madagascar and the Comoros Islands. These arboreal animals have pointed faces, long bushy tails, dark brown upper parts, pale bellies and a beard, which is reddish in males and white in females. They live in family groups and feed primarily on fruits, but also eat leaves, flowers and nectar, with nectar from the kapok tree making up a large part of their diet during the dry season. They have declined sharply in numbers because of habitat destruction and hunting, and the International Union
Animals in Buddhism not expressly commanded in the Pāli canon, it is evidently viewed as an ideal state from which human beings have fallen; the Aggañña Sutta (DN.27) explains how human beings, originally sustained on various kinds of vegetable matter (compare Gen.1:29-30), as the result of increasing wickedness began to live by hunting, which was originally thought of as a demeaning occupation. In East Asian Buddhism and particularly in Tibet and China, the release of animals, particularly birds or fish, into their natural environment became an important way of demonstrating Buddhist pity. In Tibetan Buddhism it is known as "Tsethar"; whilst in China