Meaning

noun large-eyed arboreal prosimian having foxy faces and long furry tails

originEtymology tree Latin lemurēsbor. English lemur From Latin lemurēs (“spirits of the dead”). The name was originally given to the red slender loris (then Lemur tardigradus) in 1754 by Carl Linnaeus. According to Linnaeus, the name was selected because of the nocturnal activity and slow movements of the red slender loris. In 1758, Linnaeus added, among others, the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) to…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0