Ring-tail territories share a narrow area of overlap which can be freely entered by members of opposing groups. This common-user zone is the centre of attention for each group's scent-marking activities. In ring-tails the nose is of supreme importance for picking up information about the identity and status of animals both within and outside the group. Female ring-tails perform handstands designed to bring their rear ends into comfortable contact with a slim sapling which is assiduously rubbed with genital secretions. The males do likewise, but also grasp a sapling (often the same one that has just been thoroughly smeared by a succession of females) between all fours and, with a peculiar tugging action, mark the wood with a wrist-mounted spur which is impregnated with their scent. The action may be so vigorously performed as to score the bark and expose the sapwood beneath. Both sexes will often form a queue to add their contribution to a particularly important scent post, such as a sapling in the middle of the overlap area which has been previously smothered in scent by an opposing group. In contrast, however, such 'foreign' marks at the periphery of this overlap area are carefully inspected by an inquisitive nose but then left untouched. Presumably at this outer limit 'ownership' by the rival group is tactfully accepted as their due right.

Male ring-tails also employ a long-range scent weapon during inter- male border disputes, wafting 'scent bombs' at one another by vigorously shaking their conspicuously striped tails over their backs in a powerful display which embodies both olfactory and visual components. The male preloads his tail with scent by drawing it through his wrist glands, which heavily impregnate it with odorous secretions. At the same time as shivering his tail and showering his opponent with scent the male also does a handstand and rubs his rear end against a handy sapling, thereby sending out messages at both ends simultaneously. These so-called 'stink fights' mainly take place during cross-border encounters between neighbouring groups. During these it is, as usual, the females who take the lead: they try to intimidate the opposing females by leaping and darting forwards at them, backed up by furious scent marking on any available trees. The males generally eschew this physical stuff and rely instead on their long-range stink weapons.

Similar multi-faceted scent posts are also established by the ring- tailed lemur, whose social arrangements are based on the so- called 'multi-male' system; although in this lemur, with its female- led society, the system works in a slightly different way from the generally male-dominated groupings of monkeys. Ring-tailed lemur females and their recent offspring form the stable nucleus of their group, partly because the females are the bosses and partly because they are a permanent feature of the group until death parts them from it. The males by contrast are more footloose, leaving the group of their birth and trying their luck with another one, before perhaps quitting that as well and joining another or maybe even a succession of groups. In the process several of these rootless males may temporarily meet up to form an all-male group, but this seldom lasts long before the members leave to join a group which offers the possibility of an all too brief burst of sexual activity because it contains some females.

In ring-tails there is a definite dominance hierarchy within the group. Males give way to females on all issues as an accepted matter of course, but the females have their own dominance hierarchy among themselves in such important considerations as access to the best feeding sites. However, the practical functions of female status are restricted to such matters and rank is not allowed to spoil the real pleasures of life. For a ring-tailed lemur the greatest pleasure of all is an extended session of mutual grooming in which any female, no matter how junior in rank, can freely approach and groom the top female without fear of retaliation; the dominant female is just as generous with her own attentions, so that a low-ranking member of the group has an equal chance of being at the receiving end of the number one's toothcomb. This activity seems to rate higher in importance to ring-tails than to any other lemur and grooming pods of several animals are often formed, all with their faces buried in each other's fur as the dental comb is put to work. The young juveniles are also the object of considerable attention, and the chance to give a reluctant baby's fur a thorough licking over will be instantly snapped up by any member of the group; human babies, it seems, are not unique in being attention-grabbers. As they grow up, the juveniles themselves soon start to court one another's company, forming play groups featuring rumbustious bouts of rough and tumble on the ground or breathless acrobatics dangling from a loop of lianas in a frenetic game of arboreal tag.