They’re showing up on dinner plates, served with rice and a side, in cities as much as 120 miles from their home forests. Almost 95 percent of the lemurs in the study were sold directly to clients. The rest were sold to restaurants or to middlemen who sold them to restaurants.

“They would be consumed as a special treat at home or for a special occasion out at a restaurant, depending on lemur availability,” Dr. Borgerson said. They’re a status symbol that costs more than three times as much as beef, she says, and they are sometimes eaten for unproven medicinal benefits.

“We are really surprised,” said Max Andonirina Fontaine, who served as Madagascar’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development until the country’s government dissolved in September. “It’s not an issue raised before.” In an interview days before the government collapsed, he said that the authorities intended to investigate the practice.