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In Roman mythology, the 'larvae' or 'lemures' (singular ''lemur'') were the spectres or spirits of the dead; they were the malignant version of the ''lares''. Some Roman writers describe ''lemures'' as the common name for all the spirits of the dead, and divide them into two classes: the ''lares'', or the benevolent souls of the family, which haunted and guarded the ''domus'' or household, and the ''larvae'', or the restless and fearful souls of wicked men. But the more common idea was that the Lemures and Larvae were the same. They were said to wander about at night and to torment and frighten the living.
On May 9, 11, and 13, the ''Lemuralia'' or ''Lemuria'', the feast of the Lemures, occurred, when black beans were offered to the Larvae in the hopes of propitiating them; loud noises were also used to frighten them away.
Lemurs were so named by Linnaeus for their big eyes, nocturnal habits and unearthly noises they make at night. Some species of lemur were identified by their calls before scientists had seen individuals.

Contents

Singular

Trivia

Singular

The singular form of ''larvae'' is ''larva'' in both Latin and English. The singular of ''lemures'' is ''lemur'' in both languages;^[1] Dungeons & Dragons and some other fantasy worlds have adopted the back formation ''lemure'' as the singular, following English singularization rules and therefore presumably pronounced as ''demure'', ''immure'', etc.

Trivia

★ An artist, drawing the '' card 'Hyalopterous Lemure' based on the card name only, mistakenly drew a lemur instead of a ''lemur'', turning what was presumably supposed to be a terrible monster into a moth-winged teddy bear. In the recent Time Spiral expansion a new card named 'Viscid Lemures' was printed, and its flavor text makes fun of the incident. [1]

★ The "Monsters of the Day" in the fourth season of the anime ''Sailor Moon'' were known as Lemures in the original Japanese language version and were mistransliterated as "Remliss" in the English language version.
1. ''OED'', "Lemur"