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Discovering the secrets of Madagascar

September 21, 2015 10:40 by author

Madagascar is truly unique, in both a cultural and geographical sense.

Plants and wildlife on the island have developed in a far different way to on mainland Africa. Countless species can be found nowhere else on earth while its people are an intriguing mix of Malay and African ancestry.

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Home to UNESCO World Heritage Sites and national parks, the island is famed for its countless lemur colonies, including the rare golden bamboo lemur which was only discovered less than 20 years ago.

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The country is unlike anywhere else on the planet and it holds many secrets – those that hold the many charms that make Madagascar so appealing.

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Madagascar is the world’s fourth largest island, behind only Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo (when Australia is regarded as a continent).

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It stretches more than 1,600 km on its longest axis and is also 570km across at its widest point. Within those boundaries are a wide array of geographical landscapes, featuring everything from dry sandstone cliffs to karst forests and savannah.

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The list of species found in Madagascar that cannot be found elsewhere extends into the hundreds. There are more than 70 species and subspecies of lemurs while the island also houses the biggest and smallest species of chameleon.

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The largest mammalian carnivore on the island is the endemic Fossa, which can be found in many forested areas.

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There are more than 6,000 species of plant life too, although that figure rises on a regular basis as new ones are discovered.

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Many of the island’s inhabitants can trace their roots back more than 2,000 years to Indo-Malayan travellers who used the Indian Ocean trade route that stretched past the island.
The Malagasies are a distinctive people are like to be referred to as such.

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The first European to reach the island – and the one who named it Madagascar – was the Italian explorer Marco Polo. Portuguese explorers were next to visit in around 1500 before the island was later colonised by the French, some of whose influences can still be seen today.

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