Female ring-tailed lemurs do get physical. They’ve been described as ‘exceptionally aggressive’ towards both sexes. They will terrorize and even evict subordinate females, which for a group-living species can be a death sentence. They show no mercy to mothers carrying babies, which often get killed in the crossfire. Female hostility over rank isn’t unusual amongst primates – we’ve already witnessed bullying at play within the matriarchy of savannah baboons – but attacking males is.
