Interactions With Other Species
Interactions with other fossas
Primarily, the fossa is known to be a solitary animal
(Hawkins 2009). During their mating season is typically the only
time this species is spotted together (you can read more about
reproduction in this species
here).
Other than mating, there have been rare occasions in which
fossas have been spotted hunting together. Mia-Lana Luhrs, a PhD
student from University of Gottingen, had the opportunity to
experience three male fossa hunting together (Hance 2011). They
were hunting down a Sifaka and it took them around 45 minutes to
finally capture their prey. Luhrs believes that since Madgascar
used to be abundant with much larger lemurs, which is fossas
typical prey, that this behavior of hunting together probably
evolved from those times. Since the lemurs were larger, it would
take more fossas to take them down and kill them (Luhrs 2011).
Nowadays, however, hunting together seems to be more trouble
than its worth. There have been very few instances where the
fossa been spotted hunting together, though.
Interactions with other animals
The only time that fossas are known to interact with other animals is when they are hunting them. Depending on the fossa's location, lemurs make up over half of their diet. The rest of their food comes from other small mammals, birds and reptiles that are native to Madgascar. If they are in mountainous regions, they consume far less lemurs and rely more on smaller mammals to supply their diet(Garbutt 2003).
Image credit: Nick Garbutt and Pete Oxford at Arkive.org