17 images Created 26 Feb 2013
Madagascar Mammals and Birds
As with much of the unique, endemic wildlife of Madagascar you view the birds and mammals with a mixture of awe and sadness because you are always aware how unique they are in the world, and how much of their natural habitat has been destroyed in such a historically short period of time. That is certainly how I felt when I encountered the largest of the lemurs, the Indri, for the first time. They are such beautiful creatures, almost too adorable too be true, and their haunting call adds such an essential ancient dimension to the biodiverse forests of Alaska. The same could be said for the equally adorable sifakas that have adapted so remarkably well to living in the rapidly disappearing, spiny dry-forests in the most arid regions of Madagascar.
Madagascar lacks the dominant form of primate distributed worldwide, monkeys, chimps and gorillas. Instead their niche has been filled by an older group of primates, the lemurs. They exist in isolation there because until around 160 million years ago, Madagascar was attached to the African mainland as part of the supercontinent, Gondwanaland. It then moved away from Africa where the first lemur-like primates on the fossil record appeared roughly 60 million years ago and crossed over to Madagascar shortly thereafter. The island continued to drift eastward and by the time monkeys appeared on the scene 17-23 million years ago, Madagascar was isolated from their arrival. The lemurs were isolated from evolutionary changes of the world and radiated into the large island’s many niches without too much competition or predation. Today they are found in virtually all of Madagascar’s ecosystems and share some of the social and behavioural characteristics of monkeys.
Today Madagascar is home to 33 species of lemurs across five families and 14 genera, ranging in size from the 25-gram pygmy mouse lemur to the indri. Giving it the second highest number of primate species after Brazil, and new species are still being discovered.
Madagascar lacks the dominant form of primate distributed worldwide, monkeys, chimps and gorillas. Instead their niche has been filled by an older group of primates, the lemurs. They exist in isolation there because until around 160 million years ago, Madagascar was attached to the African mainland as part of the supercontinent, Gondwanaland. It then moved away from Africa where the first lemur-like primates on the fossil record appeared roughly 60 million years ago and crossed over to Madagascar shortly thereafter. The island continued to drift eastward and by the time monkeys appeared on the scene 17-23 million years ago, Madagascar was isolated from their arrival. The lemurs were isolated from evolutionary changes of the world and radiated into the large island’s many niches without too much competition or predation. Today they are found in virtually all of Madagascar’s ecosystems and share some of the social and behavioural characteristics of monkeys.
Today Madagascar is home to 33 species of lemurs across five families and 14 genera, ranging in size from the 25-gram pygmy mouse lemur to the indri. Giving it the second highest number of primate species after Brazil, and new species are still being discovered.
