Northern sportive lemur have large bacteria-filled ceca, which helps them to digest plant matter such as cellulose and break it down into sugars and starches. The northern sportive lemur is preyed on by the native Malagasy tree boa, which hunts the lemurs while they are sleeping in tree holes. Large birds of prey, Falconiformes and Strigiformes, are also natural predators of the lemurs. Along with these ecological threats, the arboreal lemur species are also highly threatened by human charcoal production, which still continues to remove the only remaining forest habitat of the lemurs, greatly restricting their range. "L. septentrionalis" is also illegally hunted
Phedina de Bourbon (Réunion), and that for Brazza's martin commemorates Italian-born French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, later to become governor-general of the French Congo, who collected the type specimen. The "Phedina" species are members of the swallow family of birds, and are classed as members of the Hirundininae subfamily, which comprises all swallows and martins except the very distinctive river martins. DNA sequence studies suggest that there are three major groupings within the Hirundininae, broadly correlating with the type of nest built. These groups are the "core martins", including burrowing species like the sand martin; the "nest-adopters", which are birds