When were lemurs discovered?

Answer 1

Lemurs Lemurs are mentioned in sailors' voyage logs as far back as 1608 and in 1658 that at least seven lemur species were described in detail by the French merchant,Étienne de Flacourt, who may also have been the only westerner to see and chronicle the existence of a giant (now extinct) lemur, which he called the tretretretre. Around 1703 merchants and sailors began bringing lemurs back to Europe, at which time James Petiver, an apothecary in London, described and illustrated the mongoose lemur. Starting in 1751, the London illustrator George Edwards began describing and illustrating some lemur species, of which a few were included in various editions of Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus. In the 1760s and 1770s, French naturalists Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon and Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton began describing the anatomy of several lemur species. The first traveling naturalist to comment on lemurs was Philibert Commerçon in 1771, although it was Pierre Sonneratwho recorded a greater variety of lemur species during his travels.

credit: Wikipedia

Lemurs are not found on the Galapagos Islands which is what someone had previously written for this answer. They are endemic (only exist naturally) to Madagascar, the fourth largest island on the planet, due east of South Africa.