This species is nocturnal and has a territory containing about three exclusive "Terminalia" trees and access to about nine more in overlapping territories. The animal emerges at dusk from its sleeping hole in a large tree such as a baobab, or the abandoned nest of a Coquerel's giant mouse lemur ("Mirza coquereli"), moving directly to each "Terminalia" tree in turn, feeding on the gum and moving on to the next tree. It has a complex itinerary which it regularly follows, and later in the night it visits other less-favoured gum-sources and returns to the previously visited trees and gleans any gum it has missed. The same "Terminalia" trees are exploited by day by a bird, the crested coua ("Coua cristata"), which also feeds on gum.