indri

Origin

Possibly from Malagasy endrina (“the lemur Indri indri”). A common explanation asserts that the word comes from the Malagasy indry (pronounced /ˈiɳɖʐʲ/) meaning “lo!” or “behold!”, or from indry izy (“There he is!”), which guides shouted to the French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat (1748-1814) upon seeing the animal, and which Sonnerat mistook for its name, but it has been suggested that Sonnerat studied indris too closely for this story to be plausible.