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The tenrec, another remarkable mammal.
Madagascar may be well known for its lemurs, but another remarkable mammal to be found on the island is the tenrec. Although some varieties resemble a hedgehog, even curl up into a prickly ball, they are not related. It seems they have a common ancestor with the elephant. Hard to believe as the smallest species is about 4.5 centimetres long and weighs about 0.5 grams. The tailless tenrec, another of the 34 different species, is special because of the number of young in one litter, 32 is not unusual. The yellow striped tenrecs communicate by vibrating together their spines; another unique characteristic, not to be found in any other animal. As all tenrecs are nocturnal it is not easy to spot them.

You’d better bring a magnifying glass when visiting Madagascar.

Its unprecedented nature harbours some of the smallest animals in the world:

• the smallest primate: a mouse lemur with a body length of 9-9.5 centimetres and a weight of 30 grams (microcebus berthae),
• the smallest chameleon (brookesia micra), without its tail about 16 mm long;
• the smallest bee (Liotrigona bitika) with a body length of less than 2 mm.;
• and many of the Malagasy frogs belong to the smallest in the world.

Those small animals are not the easiest to spot, but to search and to find is very rewarding.

Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands surrounding it, such as Mauritius and the Seychelles, represent a so-called biodiversity hotspot. Only few places in the World have a similarly high diversity in plants and animals. On top of that many of the species found in this hotspot cannot be found anywhere else in the World. For instance, at least 90 percent of Madagascar’s reptiles are found only on Madagascar!

One type of reptile found in all colours and sizes is the smaller sized lizard known as gecko. Anyone who has ever met a gecko knows you cannot miss them. These funny little creatures are constantly calling out to each other by making chirping sounds.

Geckos come in two flavours, the party-all-night-long flavour and the early-riser-afraid-of-the-dark flavour. The nocturnal geckos usually have dull, brownish colours, while the day geckos are known as the ‘jewels of Madagascar’ because of their bright colours. I guess these geckos can’t have it all…

Camouflage Gecko

Most geckos have specialised scales in their feet with microscopic hooks on them, which allow them to cling to vertical surfaces and hang upside down. This results in geckos not only in your bed but also above it on the ceiling, next to you on the wall… they are literally all over the place.

But there is another funny thing about them: they lick their eyeballs! Once in a while you see their long, flat tongue shoot out of their mouth, land on their eyes and then slither back down into their mouth again… Yes, you heard it right! But they have good reason for this mildly weird behaviour. Their large, round eyes are only protected by single transparent scales, so no eyelids. It seems that these scales, just like the windscreen on your car, need to be cleaned once in a while, hence the licking of the eyeballs…

So, let’s consider the camouflage gecko. The mossy leaf-tailed or fringed gecko (genus Uroplatus) is an absolute master of disguise. At present 11 species are recognised, which differ in size from 6-7 cm up till 30 cm. But no matter how large they get, they are almost impossible to recognize, which the picture above illustrates. Their habitat is mostly rainforests but they are also found in deciduous forests, which lose their leafs in the fall. The larger species, as the one in the picture, tend to mimic tree bark, while the smaller ones look like dry leafs. I guess that’s why they are mostly found in rainforests, looking like a leaf in a leafless forest is not going to save you from the predators…

Information sources used for this text are Madagascar Wildlife: A Visitor’s Guide (Garbutt, Bradt and Schuurman, Bradt travel guide, April 2006) and the website http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org.

The biodiversity on Madagascar is huge, but so are the amount of threaths for conservation of the species and habitats.

The UN have called out the 22nd of May to be the international day of bioversity and 2010 the international year of biodiversity. Of course we couldn’t let this pass us by unnoticed, especially at the biodiversity hotspot that is Madagascar.

Park Ivoloina therefore organized several activities at their park during a 3 day event. The celebrations of the ‘day of biodiversity’ started at Centre Lambahoany. A day full of activities and events to create awareness on the importance of biodiversity, such as the election of Miss and Mr Biodiversité from at least 400 schoolchildren. B-Sarouk gave a wonderfull performance. After this the celebrations continued with a defilé towards Avenue de l’Independance in the city center of Tamatave.

The following days the celebration continued at Park Ivoloina, a recreational, zoological and educational park, with expositions and explainations on the biodiversity in the region. We have learned about the threatened fish populations  offshore, the diversity of animals which live in the region and special attention for the bees, who are starting to disappear in the region. The latter would be a devastating trend because without the bees the fruits can’t survive, and the litchis is the nr. 1 industry here.

So let’s celebrate and protect the biodiversity of Madagascar!