A basic understanding of the taxonomy, diversity, and distributions of primates is essential for their conservation. This review of the status of the taxonomy of lemurs is based on a 5-d workshop entitled "Primate Taxonomy for the New Millennium," held at the Disney Institute, Orlando, Florida, in February 2000. The aim is not to present a taxonomic revision, but to review our current understanding of the diversity and current and past ranges of lemurs and indicate where there is controversy, discrepancy, or lack of knowledge. Our goal therefore is to provide a baseline for future taxonomic investigation, as well as a clearer focus for research Int J Primatol (2008) and conservation priorities. We here focus on the lemurs of Madagascar and recognize 5 families, 15 genera, and 99 species and subspecies. We list 39 species of lemurs described since 2000: 2 dwarf lemurs, Cheirogaleus; 11 mouse lemurs, Microcebus; a giant mouse lemur, Mirza; a bamboo lemur, Hapalemur; 17 sportive lemurs, Lepilemur; and 7 woolly lemurs, Avahi. Taxonomic revisions have resulted in the resurrection of a further 9 taxa. However, the figures do not represent the total diversity of Malagasy lemurs because more new species are being identified via new field studies and accompanying genetic research, and should be described in the near future.

How could language have evolved? What is the key innovation underlying the evolution of human language? This Essay argues that the ability to “merge” two syntactic elements uniquely explains the recentness and stability of language. [SK to check before publishing on the homepage] CM 16/7

We live in inflationary times. A quarter of a century ago, cigarettes were about $1 a pack in New York City, a bottle of Château Beaucastel set you back $15, and there were 36 different species of lemur alive in Madagascar1 (Table 1). Today the equivalent figures are $7.40, $95, and 83 lemur species2 (Table 1). The increase in dollar prices has a lot to do with the economics of growth, something that obviously cannot be sustained indefinitely on a finite planet. Is the recent inflation in lemur taxonomy any more secure? The question is all the more worth asking because this is no isolated phenomenon: Madagascar's primates have not been alone in multiplying. The same burgeoning of species names has occurred throughout the order Primates3, 4 and beyond,5 provoking both concern and energetic debate.6–9 Interestingly, this debate has largely unfolded among ecologists, conservationists, and other “consumers” of taxonomy; many “producers” seem to be content to generate new taxonomies with a remarkable lack of introspection, as if they were no more than passive consequences of more lofty concerns. And because the same causes underlie taxonomic inflation in Madagascar as elsewhere, this extraordinary island once again presents us with a microcosm of the larger world.

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Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved. We show that, to date, (1) studies of nonhuman animals provide virtually no relevant parallels to human linguistic communication, and none to the underlying biological capacity; (2) the fossil and archaeological evidence does not inform our understanding of the computations and representations of our earliest ancestors, leaving details of origins and selective pressure unresolved; (3) our understanding of the genetics of language is so impoverished that there is little hope of connecting genes to linguistic processes any time soon; (4) all modeling attempts have made unfounded assumptions, and have provided no empirical tests, thus leaving any insights into language's origins unverifiable. Based on the current state of evidence, we submit that the most fundamental questions about the origins and evolution of our linguistic capacity remain as mysterious as ever, with considerable uncertainty about the discovery of either relevant or conclusive evidence that can adjudicate among the many open hypotheses. We conclude by presenting some suggestions about possible paths forward.

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We estimate that between 25,000 and 35,000 long-tailed macaques, Macaca fascicularis, live on the island of Mauritius, 1,865 km², in the western Indian Ocean, and we detail their distribution on the island. Probably introduced to Mauritius at some time in the 16th century, the macaques have been implicated by a succession of authors as agents both in the extinction of the bulk of the island’s unique vertebrate fauna, and in the destruction of its indigenous vegetation. Some of them have gone so far as to suggest that in view of their depredations the macaques should be eradicated from Mauritius. However, studies of the behavior and ecology of the macaques in both degraded savanna and native forest habitats, supplemented by surveys around the island, cast doubt upon this putative destructive role. Macaque population densities in Mauritius range from a maximum of around 1.3 individuals/ha in degraded savanna formations, to a minimum of approximately 0.33 individuals/ha in indigenous forest, and reflect a clear preference among these primates for secondary environments. Thus the long-tailed macaques in Mauritius, as in their southeast Asian homeland, best fit the profile of a ‘weed’ species that has simply exploited the disturbance by humans of the indigenous vegetation. They do not at the present time appear to pose a major threat to what remains of the remarkable indigenous vertebrate fauna of Mauritius, although they may help to disperse the seeds of invading exotic plant species in what remains of the indigenous forests.