Madagascar Wildlife-Part 2
My obsession with lemurs took me on an adventure where I spent 19 days in Madagascar. In a previous post, I wrote about the country and its people. This post will detail my trip and describe the flora and fauna I encountered in the dry forest region of western Madagascar.
Clicking on the images in this post will enlarge them for a better viewing experience.
Madagascar is an island in the Indian Ocean about 250 miles off the southeast coast of Africa along the Mozambique Channel.
It takes a bit of effort to get to Madagascar, 44 hrs and 10 minutes to be exact, but worth it to commune with lemurs! My travel itinerary consisted of a 9 hr 45 min overnight flight from Seattle to Paris, followed by a layover of 23 hr 50 min in Paris, and then another 10 hr 35 min flight to Antananarivo (“Tana” as it is known), the capital city of Madagascar. Charles de Gaulle Airport is about 22 miles from Paris itself. Since I had a significant amount of expensive photography gear in tow, and my luggage had to be collected before continuing on to Madagascar, I opted to wait out the layover at the airport. Many international passengers have significant layovers in Paris so there is a “hotel” called Yotelair where you can rent a cabin by the hour or for a night right inside the airport terminal itself.
My cabin was a 9′ x 10′ space with a queen bed, large screen tv, great wifi, and bathroom with shower. Tiny, but a big improvement over hanging out in a chair in the terminal. This photo was taken with an extreme wide angle lens from the entrance door so the room looks larger than it really was. I highly recommend this if you have a long layover in Paris.
After arriving in Tana, I met up with the group of folks that were to be my companions for the next 19 days. The tour was conducted by Oryx Photo Tours with Dale Morris as our awesome guide. In addition, we were accompanied by a Malagasy in-country guide who took care of all the travel details and other minutiae. My adventure consisted of the main endemic wildlife tour plus two add-on trips, one before the main tour and one after. This itinerary allowed me to experience three different ecoregions of the island.
This map shows the main locations we visited during the tour. Each was located in a different ecoregion with its own characteristic flora and fauna.
As mentioned in my post Madagascar Wildlife-Part 1, traveling around the island is a bit challenging. Since the road system in Madagascar can only be described as terrible, we flew on Air Madagascar rather than drive when destinations were far apart.
The island of Madagascar can be divided into four climatic ecoregions which possess four different forest types: in the west (yellow) mostly dry forest; the south (red), spiny forest; the east (green), moist largely tropical forest; and the upper west coast (blue) mangrove forest. I visited all but the mangrove forest region.
The first destination was the dry forest ecoregion of western Madagascar, specifically, Morodava to see the iconic baobab trees and then to the Kirindy Forest Reserve for wildlife. This area was reached by an hour flight from Tana to Morondava.
Avenue of the Baobabs
About 11 miles from the city of Morondava is the “Avenue of the Baobabs”. These rare ancient giants are dry season-deciduous trees. Many of them are more than 800 years old with trunks up to 100 feet in circumference.
Although these trees stand alone framing Road 8, they were not always isolated in this manner. At one time, they were part of a rich forest that blanketed the area. Unfortunately, an increase in population reliant on subsistent farming led to massive deforestation of the area leaving only these isolated baobabs towering above a scrub landscape.
The baobab is sometimes called the “bottle tree” because of the unique shape of its water-storing trunk. These trees can have trunk diameters of 30 feet and heights in the range of 65 feet. Baobab trees are in leaf for only a short period of time each year. These trees drop their leaves during the dry season to avoid water loss through the surface area of the leaves. They produce beautiful flowers which, after pollination, produce large gourd-like fruits. Baobabs are so bizarre looking when there are no leaves on them that according to legend the early Arab traders who came to the island said that the devil had ripped the baobabs out of the ground and turned them upside down leaving the roots sticking skyward.
The baobab is a useful tree. The trunks can be harmlessly tapped for water during the dry season, young leaves eaten like salad greens, and the pulp of the fruit, which has a tamarind-like taste, is made into a nutritious summer beverage.
There are six species of baobab endemic to Madagascar. The ones found in the Morondava area are Andasonia grandidieri. These are perhaps the most famous of the baobabs. The Avenue of the Baobabs was classified as a “Natural Monument” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in 2007. This designation made it possible for 800 acres containing these trees to be preserved saving them from future destruction. We did the 11 mile drive from Morondava over relatively good roads to visit these trees twice, once for night time photography and then again for the sunrise.
Kirindy Forest Reserve
After our time with the baobabs, we made two 30 mile journeys to the Kirindy Forest Reserve. You reach the forest by driving on Road 8 through the baobabs. Our first excursion was a forest night hike seeking nocturnally active species. The second was at sunrise for early day active species. Although many interesting species live in this forest reserve, our ultimate goal was the elusive fossa (pronounced fOO-sa).
The Kirindy Forest Reserve is a private park at the northern end of Kirindy Mitea National Park. This forest was once used an experimental sustainable timber harvesting forest. Fortunately, few scars were left by this experiment, and the forest now is the home of many unique species of plants and animals. The name Kirindy in Malagasy means “dense forest with wild animals.”
This ecoregion has two distinct climatic seasons, the wet season from December to March, and the dry season from March to December. The approximately 30 inches of annual rainfall that occur during the short rainy season make accessing the forest via road very difficult due to thick mud. October, when we were there, is near the end of the dry season. The trees had few leaves, and everything was pretty brown!
This forest is home to over sixty-five species of reptiles and amphibians, fifty-five species of birds, and thirty-one species of mammals. Most of these species are endemic and considered endangered.
Birds
Here are a few of the birds I was able to photograph in the forest.
The Madagascar Magpie-Robin is about 7 inches in length and weighs about 0.75 ounces. It is endemic to Madagascar and is found in a wide variety of habitats.
These birds forage near the ground eating primarily insects, small lizards and amphibians. They are territorial with a pair defending a territory of 2-15 acres depending on the type of ecosystem. The plumage of this species differs by sex. The bird pictured above is a female. Males are all black with a white shoulder patch. I thought the name of the bird was interesting as the female does not look at all like a magpie. My guess is the male coloration resembles a magpie, and the female maybe looks a bit like a robin!
The Malagasy Paradise Flycatcher is a regionally endemic bird found not only on Madagascar but also in Mayotte and Comoros.
It is a medium-sized bird about 7 inches in length and weighing in at 4 ounces. Males have long tail feathers that can be 7 inches in length. The plumage coloration of these birds differs by sex. The female is mainly orange with a black head, nape, and flight feathers. The bird pictured here is a male. Both sexes have the light blue ring around the eye. Although their population has been declining, this species is not considered endangered.
We spotted this strictly nocturnal White-Browed Owl on our night hike in the forest. This endemic species is about 10 inches long with a 28 inch wingspan. Its name refers to the white feathering over the eyes.
Not very much is known about this species. It is a ground nesting bird. Its diet is mostly insects and small vertebrates which it catches from a perch.
The Madagascar Scops Owl is an endemic 7-9 inch long owl with a 20 inch wingspan that only weighs 3-4 ounces.
This strictly nocturnal owl roosts during the day in dense foliage either between branches or perched up against the trunk of a tree. It hunts at night by flying from tree to tree looking for moths and beetles and will often take moths on the wing. Little is known about the breeding behavior of these owls.
Lemurs
Kirindy Forest provided my first opportunity to see lemurs in the wild.
Lemurs are primates. Primates can be divided into two major groups – prosimians and simians. Lemurs fall into the prosimian group while monkeys and apes are simians. Although it is often said that lemurs were the ancestral primates from which monkeys and apes evolved, lemurs did not give rise to monkeys and apes. While sharing a resemblance with simians, lemurs evolved independently from the monkeys and apes due to Madagascar being a landmass in isolation for 88 million years. There are at least 111 known lemur species, and it is believed this huge diversity is a result of isolated evolution. Since there was little competition for food and other resources, lemurs dispersed all over the island into a wide variety of habitats creating a large assortment of highly specialized species.
Before human habitation, lemurs were found everywhere on the island. As the forests were converted into rice paddies and pastureland using slash and burn techniques, their forest habitats diminished restricting them to only a percentage of their original range. While lemurs have evolved adaptations allowing them to live in extreme conditions, the effects of habitat destruction, hunting, and illegal logging have caused a precipitous population decline in many of the species. The orange on the map shows where lemurs are found today.
Prosimians are characterized morphologically by having pointed, fox-like snouts, long tails, big ears, and large eyes. The first thing you notice when looking at a lemur is its eyes! Although they lack color vision, lemurs possess enhanced low-light vision. For this reason, some lemur species are nocturnally active allowing them protection from diurnal (daytime) predators. They have wet noses which give them olefactory superpowers, and four fingers and an opposable thumb on each hand and foot allowing them to perform delicate acts of manipulation. They also have two laterally flattened grooming nails on the second toe which is used for personal grooming.
Lemurs tend to be social animals with many species living in family groups in which females are dominant over males. Contrary to most other types of primates, males are not larger than females, but rather, very similar in size. One of the family activities is social grooming. You often can tell the hierarchy in a family based on the order in which grooming is done.
The name lemur derives from the Latin word lemures meaning evil ghosts or spirits of the dead. In ancient Rome, Lemuria was an annual religious event held on three specific days, May 9, 11, and 13, during which Romans performed a series of rituals to protect themselves from the ghosts and other malevolent spirits which included leaving offerings outside the home so these ghosts would be appeased and leave the family alone. Lemuria was the Roman equivalent of Halloween. (I knew my years of high school Latin would be good for something!)
Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, taxonomist and one of the most acclaimed scientists of his day, was responsible for bestowing the name of lemur on these primate species. Linnaeus was the scientist who devised the biological system of classification that divides all living creatures into a heirarchy of kingdoms, genera and species. Linneaus said “I call [the creatures in this genus] lemurs, because they go around mainly by night, in a certain way similar to humans, and roam with a slow pace.” Interestingly, although only one of the three animals Linnaeus originally classified as a lemur, the Lemur catta (Latin name for the ring-tailed lemur), is actually a lemur.
The Red-fronted Lemur is one of seven subspecies of brown lemur found in Madagascar. They are about the size of a house cat weighing 4-8 pounds.
Red-fronted lemurs are arboreal. Although they typically move through the forest canopy in a quadrupedal fashion long the length of branches, they can also leap short distances from tree to tree.
These lemurs have very long tails, as much 2 feet or more in length. Lemur tails are not prehensile. Instead, they are used for balance while leaping from tree to tree. Red-fronted lemurs are one of the few species in which the family group is not female dominated. This species is sexually dichromatic, meaning the males and females have obvious differences in fur coloration allowing you to easily determine the sex of an individual. The lemur in this photo is a male because he has gray-brown fur and a red cap. Females have reddish fur and lack the red cap. The photo at the top of this post is of a female red-fronted lemur.
This species lives in permanent social groups of four to 18 with an average family size of eight to ten individuals. Sexually mature females give birth to one infant per year which clings to momma’s belly for the first three weeks before showing some independence and starting to eat solid food. The infant is weaned at 5-6 months.
Red-fronted lemurs are cathemeral meaning they are active at varying times, sometimes during the day and sometimes during the night. Their time of activity seems to be related to the season. They tend to prefer to be nocturnally active at night during the dry season, likely in an effort to conserve energy during the heat of the day. In addition, there is less foliage during the dry season which would make them more vulnerable to predators during the day. Red-fronted lemurs have a diet of leaves, flowers, fruits and invertebrates. Red-fronted lemurs are classified as vulnerable.
The Verreaux’s Sifaka is one of nine species of lemurs in the Indriidae or “leaping lemur” family. Sifakas are distinguished from other lemurs by their manner of locomotion.
Sifakas maintain a distinctly vertical posture while leaping through the trees using just the strength of their back legs. They are leaping superstars able to clear distances of 30 feet or more. Sifakas are not able to walk quadrupedally on the ground.
The Verreaux’s Sifaka is medium-sized, about 18 inches in length, having a fluffy white coat usually with a dark brown head cap and a hairless black face with deep golden eyes. Their tails are about equal in length to that of their bodies. They are the only species of lemur to have partially webbed feet. They are found in a wide range of habitats, varying from spiny forest to rainforest, in the southern and southwestern regions of the island. As a species, they have adapted to diverse climates and the different types of vegetation available in these ecosystems. These sifakas are very social and live in a family group called a conspiracy. Families are female dominated.
Verreaux’s sifakas are diurnal and spend most of their daytime hours foraging, grooming or sunbathing in the tops of trees. At night, they sleep in clusters high in the trees. They are herbivores whose diets vary with the season and climate. During the rainy season, they eat fruits and flowers; during the dry season they mostly consume leaves and bark.
Since Verreaux’s sifakas are arboreal, they are classified as critically endangered due to deforestation. I will cover more about Verreaux’s sifakas when I write about visiting the spiny forest of southern Madagascar.
The Red-tailed Sportive Lemur is a nocturnally active lemur found in the west-central part of Madagascar along the Mozambique Channel. During the day these lemurs sleep in tree crotches and hollows where they are well camouflaged.
Red-tailed sportive lemurs, which are sometimes called red-tailed weasel lemurs, are about the size of a gray squirrel. Their bodies are about 11 inches long with a tail of almost the same length, and they weigh about 1.8 pounds (about the weight of a quart container of milk.)
These are not social lemurs. They lead a solitary existence. A male will defend a home range of about 2.5 acres which will often overlap with the slightly smaller range of a female. Red-tailed sportives form monogamous mating pairs, and although pairs have overlapping ranges, they rarely interact or spend time near each other except when breeding. This lifestyle is known as dispersed pairing. During the mating season, male sportive lemurs have been observed to spar with other males in a manner that looks like they are boxing. This behavior has resulted in the name “sportive” for these lemurs.
Sportive lemurs are distinguished from other lemurs by their ability to digest and extract nutrition from foods indigestible for other lemurs. They are folivores with a diet that consists almost exclusively of leaves. Leaves are primarily composed of cellulose which is not directly digestible by most mammals. It requires certain digestive microorganisms to perform the digestion. Red-tailed Sportive Lemurs have one of the lowest resting metabolic rates for mammals, which may be due to their low-energy leaf diet. At night these lemurs leap from tree to tree in search of leaves to eat. They have hind legs that are longer than their forelimbs which help them to leap vertically from tree to tree. In contrast to sifakas, sportives do possess the ability to move quadrupedally on the ground.
Females give birth to a single infant at the start of the rainy season. Whereas the infants of most lemur species ride around on a mother’s back or attached to her chest, female sportives, for the two months until they are weaned, carry their infants in their mouths depositing them in tree holes or camouflaged branches while they forage.
Due to the destruction of their habitats by logging, it is not uncommon for these lemurs to die simply because they lack the energy that would be necessary for traveling to more plentiful trees. These lemurs are also heavily hunted for food. The red-tailed sportive lemur population has declined about 80% in recent years, and they are classified as critically endangered.
The Gray Mouse Lemur is one of the smallest primates known although they are the largest of the different mouse lemur species.
They have body lengths of around 5 inches with tails about the same length and only weigh around 2 ounces. They were named mouse lemurs due to their resemblance to mice. They are nocturnally active. To aid their vision in darkness, these lemurs have a light reflecting layer called the tapetum behind the retina of each eye. When hiking at night with a flashlight, you can spot these lemurs as your light reflects off their eyes. That is how we found them.
They are solitary foragers whose diet consists primarily of fruit, flower nectar and insects. They typically move quadrupedally through the forest along horizontal and vertical objects such as branches and tree trunks and are capable of leaping from tree to tree at distances of up to 10 feet.
When they leap, they will catch the destination branch with all four legs. These lemurs can also leap to catch insects. On the ground, they hop from place to place in a frog-like manner.
Mouse lemurs store fat in their tails and hind limbs for when food is scarce. They may store amounts of fat up to 35 percent of their body weight.
Mouse lemurs and baobab trees have an important relationship. Hawk moths will feed on the nectar of the baobab flowers. Mouse lemurs will feed on the nectar of these flowers as well as eat the moths. These species spread the pollen which results in pollination of the flowers and fruit production. This makes for a mutually beneficial relationship between the mouse lemur and baobab.
The Fossa is the largest carnivore and top predator native to Madagascar. Although cat-like in appearance, it is actually a relative of the mongoose having evolved from the same distant ancestor. Some of these ancestors arrived in Madagascar about 21 million years ago where they underwent a different evolutionary path than the mongoose.
Today’s fossa can grow to a length of 6 feet from the nose to the tip of the tail. The tail can be about half of the total length. They weigh about 26 pounds. Fossa have reddish brown fur and a muzzle that is very dog-like in appearance. Similar to a cat, the fossa has semi-retractable claws and sharp teeth that look very cat-like. At one time, fossa were believed to be cat relatives, but studies have shown this not to be true.
The fossa is a solitary animal except during the breeding season. In the Kirindy Forest, the territory of a single fossa is about 1.5 square miles. The species is cathemeral having activity peaks early in the morning, late in the afternoon, and again late in the night when it is in food acquisition mode. In contrast to nocturnal and diurnal species which sleep once per day, the fossa will sleep multiple times that are evenly distributed through the 24-hour day.
The savagery of the fossa is the subject of legend. When humans first settled on Madagascar, there was a huge 200 pound fossa species roaming the island. This mega fossa died out about 500 years ago and is probably the reason for fossa fear on the island today. Although they look pretty fierce, fossa do not typically attack humans.
The fossa is strictly carnivorous and will feed on almost any rodent, bird, reptile or mammal it can get its claws on including lemurs, its favorite culinary delight. It is the only predator that is capable of preying on the adults of all species of lemurs. Over 90% of its diet consists of vertebrate species, 50% of which are lemurs.
In western Madagascar where the Kirindy Forest is located, it is estimated that fossa annually eat about 18% of the mouse lemur population and 13% of the Verreaux’s sifaka population including about one third of the sifaka infants born.
The fossa is a very agile animal. They are excellent climbers and are able to pursue lemurs through the trees. Their retractable claws, flexible ankles and long tail used for balance allow the fossa to climb up and down the trunks of trees. They are also able to leap from tree to tree, maneuver from branch to branch and run along branches in pursuit of lemur meals. Fossa are equally comfortable hunting on the ground.
Fossa breed in an interesting manner. A female fossa will establish herself in a tree which attracts a group of up to eight males who vocalize and spar to impress her. She picks out her favorites, and over a span of a week, she will descend multiple times to breed with one or more of her suitors. When she is done breeding, another female will take over the tree, and the process begins again.
Although found in a wide variety of habitats, they are quite rare in each habitat. Fossa have to have trees for survival. Their populations have been in serious decline because of habitat loss from the fragmentation and destruction of forest land by slash and burn agricultural practices and by logging. As their habitats disappear, they move closer to populated areas and are killed as pests when they prey on domestic poultry. The fossa is classified as a vulnerable species.
The time spent exploring the dry forest area of western Madagascar, from seeing the amazing baobab trees to finding and photographing the elusive fossa, was an awesome experience that made the travel to get to Madagascar all worthwhile…and the best was yet to come! After four days, we boarded an Air Madagascar flight back to Antananarivo to prepare for our next adventure. Stay tuned for a future post on the wonders of Madagascar’s spiny forest.
Resources: