Intraspecific Variation in Maximum Ingested Food Size and Body Mass in Varecia rubra and Propithecus coquereli

Abstract

In a recent study, we quantified the scaling of ingested food size ( V b )—the maximum size at which an animal consistently ingests food whole—and found that V b scaled isometrically between species of captive strepsirrhines. The current study examines the relationship between V b and body size within species with a focus on the frugivorous Varecia rubra and the folivorous Propithecus coquereli . We found no overlap in V b between the species (all V. rubra ingested larger pieces of food relative to those eaten by P. coquereli ), and least-squares regression of V b and three different measures of body mass showed no scaling relationship within each species. We believe that this lack of relationship results from the relatively narrow intraspecific body size variation and seemingly patternless individual variation in V b within species and take this study as further evidence that general scaling questions are best examined interspecifically rather than intraspecifically.