Verreaux's Sifaka is a medium-sized lemur who lives in Madagascar in a variety of habitats from rainforest to dry deciduous forests of the west and the spiny thickets of the south. Fruit, bark and flowers are typical components of the diet, but they eat leaves much of the year. Their fur is thick and silky and generally white with brown on the sides, top of the head, and on the arms. They range between 42.5 and 45 cm and adult females reach 3.4 kg on average, and adult males 3.6 kg. They have a long tail that they use as a balance when leaping from tree to tree, but on the ground their only means of locomotion is hopping. They are diurnal and arboreal, and engage in sunbathing with outstretched arms and legs. They move through the trees by clinging and leaping between vertical supports. They live in family groups, or troops, of 2-12, which may consist of one male and female, or many males and females together. Group and population sex ratio can be more or less skewed toward males although their society is matriarchal. They have a home range of up to 5.0 hectares, and although they are territorial, they defend food sources rather than territorial boundaries. Males and females were found to engage in a biological market, exchanging grooming for grooming during the non-mating period, and grooming for reproductive opportunities during the mating period. Their play behavior persists into adulthood where it is used, especially by stranger males during the mating period, as an ice-breaking mechanism to reduce xenophobia. Around 45% of females breed each year when in oestrous between late January and early February and they give birth to one infant after a gestation period of 130 days. For the first 6-8 weeks, the infant clings to the mother's stomach, but for the following 19 weeks, it clings to her back. About 30% of infants are lost to predation by the Fossa and some to raptors like the Madagascar harrier-hawk. Those who survive reach sexual maturity between 3-5 years. They are listed as Critically Endangered in 2020 and their numbers seemed to be influenced by the proportion of large trees and the plant species Allouadia procera. They are not in danger of imminent extinction, but both severe droughts and an increased annual variation in rainfall levels can depress the population growth rate.