DIANA REGION, Madagascar — With the sun still low in the sky, my taxi boat pulled up to a floating wooden pontoon in the bustling port of Ankify in northwestern Madagascar. As one of the few foreigners, or vazaha, in the port that morning, I was instantly surrounded by local taxi drivers eager to take […]
The DreamWorks version of Madagascar is exactly that, a fantasy. The island nation is no unpeopled paradise teeming with dancing lemurs, as depicted in the animated Madagascar film. On the contrary, almost all of its lemur species are being driven to extinction by humans. This World Lemur’s Day, it is worth pointing out that the […]
Human actions have pushed 13 more lemur species, the iconic primates native to Madagascar, to the brink of extinction, according to an update to the list of the world’s threatened species. Those now in the critically endangered category of the IUCN Red List include the tiniest primate in the world, the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur […]
Madagascar is home to dozens of species of charismatic lemurs who come in a range of sizes, colors and appearances, from the tiny mouse lemur to the largest indri, but a recent assessment found that one thing they all have in common is that nearly every species of lemur is now in danger of extinction. […]
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Two weeks ago, the bodies of 11 critically endangered lemurs were discovered in Iaroka forest inside the Zahamena Ankeniheny Corridor protected area in eastern Madagascar. The lemurs were allegedly killed by one of the local officials charged with protecting them, to the dismay of conservation leaders. The protected forest is managed jointly […]
One of the world’s biggest populations of greater bamboo lemurs (Prolemur simus) – sometimes known as the panda lemur – has doubled in just three years, giving conservationists new hope that the species can be kept from extinction. With the recent arrival of twenty babies, a community conservation project run by the Aspinall Foundation has […]
Due to the wonderful idiosyncrasies of evolution, there is one country on Earth that houses 20 percent of the world’s primates. More astounding still, every single one of these primates—an entire distinct family in fact—are found no-where else. The country is, of course, Madagascar and the primates in question are, of course, lemurs. But the […]
Thousands of species were scientifically described for the first time in 2013. Many of these were ‘cryptic species’ that were identified after genetic analysis distinguished them from closely-related species, while others were totally novel. Below are some of the most interesting “new species” discoveries that took place or were formally announced in 2013. The last […]