Announcing…Another new children’s story set in Madagascar

It’s available on Amazon today! Leo’s Great Adventure: A Golden Bamboo Lemur Tale. Yes, it’s another Lemur story set in Madagascar, but the storyline is quite different from the previous tale of Luna, the Mouse Lemur. [You can click on the links to go directly to the Amazon site to order the book(s).]

The back and front covers of the book.

One of the most fascinating things I heard about when we visited Madagascar was that Bamboo Lemurs really do eat mostly bamboo. In fact, two lemur species eat the highly toxic giant bamboo which has the highest cyanide content of any bamboo. Those two lemur species consume an amount daily that would kill a human. In addition, one of the most beautiful forests we visited, Ranomafana National Park, was the perfect setting for a story about Bamboo Lemurs because they were the reason that the park was created in 1991.

Several pages at the end of the story are devoted to background information about lemurs, bamboo, and the precarious survival of native species in the face of increasing human development.

As I mentioned in my previous post about the Luna book, I would like to write a series of children’s books about endangered animals and places to raise awareness of their fragile existence in our world today with the hope that younger readers will be inspired to contribute to conservation efforts in the future. My royalties from book sales will be donated to conservation research in Madagascar, specifically at this time to the Lemur Center at Duke University.

I hope you’ll like this fanciful tale and read it to your kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, etc. Here’s a small sampler of the wonderful illustrations created with ChatGPT’s AI art platform DALL-E (from OpenAI). My daughter Alison generated the images from precise written descriptions of the animal, the situation being described in the story, and the background where it took place. She’s a wizard at this stuff! The book was put together using Canva, a program with a library of clip art and image editing tools to blend art and text.

Leo has met up with Greater Bamboo Lemurs on his adventure, and they have taken him to a stand of Giant Bamboo.

“What’s the matter, little lemur?” inquired one of the friendly Greater Bamboo Lemurs.
“This bamboo tastes bad, and it makes my stomach hurt,” Leo replied. “Why is this bamboo so different from the plants near my home?”

AI creation of this chameleon was based on the Panther Chameleon, which probably does not occur in Ranomafana NP, but is found in more northern tropical forests in Madagascar.

I hope you will write a comment and tell me how the kids liked the book. Thanks in advance for your interest!

Announcing….A story set in Madagascar!

I’ve written a children’s book about Mouse Lemurs and baobab trees, illustrated with some amazing AI art created by daughter Alison (the person who got me started on this blog more than 12 years ago). 

Back and front covers of the book. Click on the image to enlarge it and read the brief description of the story.

The book was inspired by my recent visit to Madagascar, specifically by the incredible wildlife and plants we saw and the stories we heard about them. The visit there was enlightening, but at the same time depressing, because we were made aware of how precarious survival of native species is in the face of escalating human development. And so another reason for writing this story for kids was to highlight the unique biological relationships of plants and animals in Madagascar and raise awareness of their fragile existence. 

A couple of examples of the artwork and story line:

Luna’s Quest was published on Amazon Kindle and is now available for purchase. 

Luna’s Quest: A Mouse Lemur Tale
https://a.co/d/0xn9KDc

As mentioned in the book description on Amazon, proceeds from sale of the book are to be donated to conservation efforts in Madagascar, specifically (at this time) to the Lemur Center at Duke University. I think the story content is appropriate for ages 3-12; try it out on your kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, etc.

Several pages at the end of the story are devoted to some description of the natural history of the main characters of the story and discussion questions for Young Readers.

Thanks, Sue

Some of the mammals we met in 2023

It’s difficult to choose “best” among all the photos of various species of mammals we saw this year, many of them for the first time. But here are some of my favorites.

Bighorn ram descending a rock face in Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Bighorn sheep grazing in Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Big bruiser male Brown Bear in northeastern Finland. We were so close to the Russian border here, this was probably a Russian brown bear!

Big bruiser and his girlfriend, at the Bear Centre, near Kuusamo, Finland

Reindeer doe and calf, northern Finland

Reindeer on the road in northern Finland. Most wear collars that let owners know where they are.

European Red Squirrel in its roost hole, central Finland

Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur, Lemurs Park, Madagascar

Coquerel’s Sifaka, Lemurs Park, Madagascar

Golden Bamboo Lemur eating toxic Giant Bamboo, Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar

Beechey (California) ground squirrel, Pinnacles National Park, CA

Pronghorn Antelope, Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, AZ

Cryptic

Some animals are really well camouflaged in their environment—so well, in fact, that you have to stare at the scene for a while to spot them. Our Madagascar guides delighted in showing us frogs and lizards that we walked right by because they resembled their background so well.

See the frog? I didn’t, I just pointed the camera where they said to look.

This one was easier to spot. It looks nothing like the images I found of the Fort Madagascar Endemic Frog on Wikipedia, which states that the “species” is actually a complex of several species that haven’t been fully described. This is a common problem, with the extremely high endemism of all the animals in Madagascar.

See the Gecko? I didn’t.

Rear end view of a Satanic Leaf-tailed Gecko — so well-named!

Another view of the back of the Satanic Leaf-tailed Gecko — at night.

See the frog that looks like a leaf?

The Madagascar Bright-eyed Frog in its basic tan camo colors. Sometimes it’s green.

In dappled shade, this Oustalet’s Chameleon blends in well. This is quite a large chameleon which can reach lengths of more than two feet (including tail). It’s common, found everywhere in Madagascar, and seems to easily adapt to a variety of habitats.

Not so well camouflaged in the bright sun, but maybe it doesn’t need to be. It’s one of the larger reptilian carnivores. Females of this species are green.

Another Oustalet’s Chaemeleon acting like a branch as it hangs head down from the vegetation.

Chameleons are entertaining to watch as they move slowly along, rotating their eyes independently of one another and grasping slender twigs with their zygodactylous feet.

[If you have trouble finding the animal in the photos above like I did, here’s a hint: click on the image to enlarge it — the animal in question is in the center of the image.]

This Collared Iguana almost escaped notice, except for its broad, black-barred collar. It’s called an iguana (or a skink or a swift), but belongs to a completely different family than our American Iguanas. They are primarily medium-sized, arboreal insect hunters that can blend in nicely with the color and texture of the tree bark.

In contrast, the little Madagascar Day Gecko flaunts its brilliant bright green body with orange spots along its back right out in the open, in the bright light of daytime. Quite a bold critter compared to the others.

Secrets of the mouse lemur

Mouse lemurs are the smallest of all the primate species (even tinier than South America’s marmosets), and possess some special abilities not found in other primates.

Rufous or Brown Mouse Lemurs measure less than 5 inches in body length, and on average weigh about as much as a tennis ball. (Photo by Anna Zuniga at dusk with her fantastic phone camera in Ranomafana National Park)

What was initially thought (1970s) to be two species of mouse lemur in Madagascar, a gray one and a reddish-brown one, has subsequently exploded into an incredible diversity of mouse lemur species following recent DNA analysis of individuals from various sites throughout the country (somewhere between 12 and 24 species, depending on who is lumping and who is splitting).

Differences between species are distinguishable between north and south, wet and dry climates, and even between groups living in different climate regimes, e.g., moist tropical forest vs seasonal moist tropical forest, and high altitude dry forest vs lower altitude dry forest. (Yoder et al., PNAS, Sept 26,2000).

Some characteristics of their natural history may help explain this diversity of mouse lemur species.
1. Obviously they are small animals, and consequently, they have very small home ranges —about 0.01 square miles, which is a patch about 500 X 500 feet. So, one theory is that mouse lemurs exploit and adapt to their local microclimate quite well, and their limited movement in the environment precludes them coming into contact with many other mouse lemur species (I.e., barriers to gene flow). Within their local micro habitat, they are generalist consumers, specializing in whatever is available: insects, fruit, flowers, nectar, seeds, vegetation. Thus, it is even possible for sympatric (same environment) speciation to occur when mouse lemurs begin to specialize in food types.

2. Mouse lemurs are very sexy animals, by which I mean they mate A LOT during the breeding season: males mate with many females, and females mate with many males, often one right after the other. But females will reject a mating with the same male twice. In addition, in another strange twist, males develop very large testes during the breeding season, significantly larger than in non-breeding condition. And some researchers believe that sperm competition in the females’ reproductive tract may also be responsible for their rapid speciation.

This is not a fake photo! The result of sperm competition in males — enlarged testes and increased sperm production. (Photo from AAAS news, 13 Nov, 2014)

These delightful little lemurs have more secrets to tell, but that has to wait for another post. In the meantime check out what the Duke University Lemur Center has been doing over the last 35 years to further our understanding of lemur biology and conservation efforts in Madagascar.

Duke University Lemur Center and. Lemur research at Duke University

A variety of Gray Mouse Lemur in its natural habitat (photo from Duke University).

Baobab — a different way to build a tree

Madagascar is home to 6 of the 8 existing species of Baobab in the world.  Here in the Avenue of Baobabs, near Morondava, Madagascar, individuals of three Baobab species are the remnants of the dry, deciduous native forest that has been replaced by agricultural fields.

Baobab are often called bottle trees, or upside-down trees, for their strange, thick cylindrical shapes that taper at the crown before branching into what resembles a mass of roots that are actually its branches.

A lone Baobab tree still standing in a Malagasy farm yard.

Not only is their structure unique and remarkable, but their annual phenology (cycle of leaf, flower, fruit production) is as well.  The trees shown here flower during the dry season from May to August, but each flower lasts less than a day, and the entire flower production of the tree may last less than a week.  Leaf production follows during the wet season from October to May, which marks the period of tree growth and fruit production.

Flowers burst into full display from buds within a few hours, displaying creamy white petals below a huge mass of anthers (yellow-tipped filaments in the image).  All the pollen is released the first night the flower is open.  The floral perfume and nectar attract huge numbers of pollinator visitors:  hawk moths, fruit bats, birds, and mouse lemurs.

The fruits are dry, but full of vitamins (C and B6) and sugars. They are protected by a thick shell, but some baobab species drop the fruit from the husk at ripening, making them available to birds and mammals on the ground.

Baobab also provide roost and nest sites for a variety of animals: the dense array of their branches are ideal platforms for nesting birds, for example, and we did see a few species cruising the tree’s upper architecture, perhaps looking for the perfect spot.

A Sickle-billed Vanga poked around a bit, maybe hunting for insects, or a nest site?

Sakalava weavers flitted through the low bushes and over the tops of the Baobab. Weavers build remarkably complex nests in trees, but I don’t know if Baobab is one of their preferred nest sites.

But the most intriguing thing about these unusual trees is why they look like they do!  Is the shape really an adaptation to life in an arid landscape, with the trunk acting like a water reservoir in times of drought?  Do the trees use the water in the trunk for photosynthesis to build flowers, leaves and new branches?

The trunk diameters are impressively large, more than 9 feet in this tree (according to the 6 foot person standing next to the base). And the trunk supports a massive weight of tree that may reach 100 feet or more in height.  Baobab grow very, very slowly.  The giant is probably hundreds if not thousands of years old, while the young sapling may already be dozens of years old.

Researchers from the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Kirindy research station near Morondava, Madagascar, investigated this question and found some striking departures from the traditional assumptions about “water storage” in Baobab.  Most important, they documented that less than 10 percent of the water in the spongey, water-laden central mass of the trunk actually moved upward to be used for photosynthesis by the leaves.  Well, then, what’s all that water for?

Humans were unsuccessful in cutting down the Baobab when they cleared the dry forest. They simply couldn’t cut through the incredibly thick outer bark.

Living in a nutrient-limited, water- limited forest environment meant that Baobab trees would need to economize on wood production in order to grow tall as quickly as possible.  So, these trees use a combination of outer bark strength and turgor pressure of the water in the interior spongey cells to maintain a rigid column, rather than putting energy and material (e.g., synthesizing lignin) into production of wood.  If they lose too much of their interior water, the trunk will collapse under its own weight, so the interior water reservoir remains full. Basically, the larger the base of outer wood and inner water-filled space, the greater the strength of the column for support.  The interior “water reservoir” is a biomechanical stiffening agent.

Their girth and their height are truly amazing.

Baobab are dry forest survivors in this part of Madagascar, but the Malagasy people call them “mother of the forest”. Their iconic shape reminds us of the many ways that “life will find a way” (a la Jurassic Park)

Madagascar highlights

We’ve just returned from a two week adventure in Madagascar, during which we visited a variety of humid tropical forest and dry forest habitats in a few of the 19 national parks to see some of the country’s endemic species of lemurs, reptiles, plants, and insects.

There are over 100 lemur species in Madagascar, all of which evolved on the island from a single ancestor that found its way there after the island separated from Africa and India. The Golden Bamboo Lemur is one of the rarest and most endangered.. First discovered in 1986, its presence, along with other critically endangered fauna in the same area, led to the formation of Ranomafana National Park in 1991.

Ring-tailed Mongoose or Vontsira, medium sized weasel-like mammals, are one of the ten species of carnivores in Madagascar. Some scientists believe that all Madagascar carnivore species evolved from a single ancestor that may have rafted to Madagascar from Africa.

Photo from Wikipedia

There are 283 bird species in Madagascar, 40% of which are endemic to the island. This means Madagascar has the highest percentage of endemic bird species in the world at this time. However, many species are on the EDGE, literally and by category (evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered).

The spectacular Paradise Flycatchers are widespread in Madagascar but are also found in the Comoros Islands, I.e., it is not endemic to just Madagascar. They are relatively common in all forest types except montane, and are one of the few bird species of least concern on the island.

Crested Coua and eight other Coua species are all endemic to the island. They are jay-like in their behavior, even sounding like a Jay, but are related to cuckoos. They are rather weak flyers and hop between ground and low branches rather than flying in the dry deciduous forest.

Malagasy Kingfishers are one of two endemic kingfisher species. Only 5 inches long, their brilliant coloration nevertheless makes them stand out in their wetland habitat.

All 72 species of chameleons are endemic to Madagascar. The Blue-legged Chameleon, also known as the cryptic chameleon, can change its brilliant colors into dull brown to avoid detection.

The Madagascar Collared Iguana is not related to iguanas of the Americas, but is in a separate family. They do act like iguanas though and can be found on the trunks of trees as well as the ground in the dry forest.

Madagascar Brilliant Blue is a nymphalid butterfly found on many of the islands of the western Indian Ocean. There are more butterfly species (300+) than bird species on Madagascar, about 210 of which are native just to Madagascar alone.

Insects like the Giraffe-necked weevil may have been blown from Africa to Madagascar. This odd little beetle has a long tubular neck used for fighting in males.

Baobab alley on the western coastal area of the island features the giant baobab trees that are remnants of the dry deciduous forest that used to be here. The tough, thick bark at the base of the trees resisted the “slash and burn” efforts of the farmers to clear the land here, leaving them standing among the rice paddies.

There are over 900 Orchid species in Madagascar, an astounding 83% of which are native to the island.

The astounding biodiversity in Madagascar is a product of its long evolutionary isolation and its diverse topography. Central highlands (up to 8000 feet) drop off to the east where a wet climate produces lush tropical rainforest along the length of the island at mid and low altitudes. To the east, the rain shadow effect of the highlands results in a series of rolling hills of grasslands, eventually giving way to dry deciduous forest along the west coast and spiny forest at the southern tip. So many environments, so many niches to fill, so much biodiversity.

But this amazing biodiversity is fragile and vulnerable to the presence and actions of humans that have colonized the island for the past 2000 years and have transformed the landscape for agriculture.

Hillside forests are gone, replaced by terraces of rice paddies and vegetable gardens. (Click on the photo to enlarge the view.)

Men spade up the ground after harvesting to start another crop. The land is continually in production, aided by irrigation from local rivers.

Loss of habitat, especially removal of trees that provide food and protection for animals, is a major threat to Madagascar’s biodiversity. Add to that the pressure from a rapidly growing and expanding human population (30 million in 2023) and increasing extremes in weather that have changed the periodicity and extent of wet and dry seasons. The challenges to protect biodiversity are enormous, and risk of failure is high. Species facing the greatest threats (according to an article from the journal Science in 2022) are fish, mammals (especially lemurs), amphibians and mollusks, as well as a wide variety of plants.

EP= extinct before 1500 CE. EX= extinct after 1500 CE. EW = extinct in the wild. CR/PE= critically endangered, possibly extinct. CR= critically endangered. EN= endangered. VU= vulnerable. NT= not threatened. LC = least concern. From Ralimanana et al., Science, 2 Dec 2022.

Why are lemurs only found in Madagascar?

There are more than 100 species of lemurs on Madagascar, with the total number changing often as scientists determine their genetic identities and relationships more precisely. These unique early primate animals are of interest specifically because of their place in human evolutionary history. They share our primate characteristics of forward facing eyes, five digits with nails (instead of claws), a partially opposable thumb, capability for bipedal locomotion, excellent color vision, complex social groups, and relatively long life and slow development.

Black and white Ruffed Lemurs are one of the largest lemurs, both in length and weight. They are entirely arboreal and spend their time high in the canopy of seasonal rainforests of eastern Madagascar.

Gray Bamboo Lemurs, as their name suggests, eat bamboo, and have more manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination than other lemur species. There are three subspecies, all in decline in numbers because of loss of habitat and hunting pressure.

Coquerel’s Sifaka occur in the dry deciduous forest of northwestern Madagascar. With their long hind limbs, they are agile jumpers, making their way from ground to tree, and from tree branch to branch. They use the same arboreal jumping motion on the ground as they jump from place to place, as shown in the video below.

Because of its proximity to the East African coast, it was thought that lemurs had spread to Madagascar before the island separated from Africa during tectonic movements of the Indian plate in the mid-Mesozoic, 160 million years ago. However, recent fossil evidence indicates that lemurs actually evolved in Africa from an early primate lineage only about 50 million years ago, long after the island had separated from Africa. Current thinking is that the progenitors of Lemurs may have rafted across the Mozambique Channel and established themselves in the pristine rainforests of Madagascar, the first placental mammals to do so. The earlier progenitors of lemurs in Africa eventually became extinct there, replaced by other, more clever and intelligent primates like the monkeys, leaving their only descendants on Madagascar.

Female Black Lemurs are brown, with white ear tuffs, distinguishing them from the male (below). This almost two foot tall lemur has a tail as long as its body.

Male Black Lemur. This species lives in the moist forests of northwestern Madagascar.

For the past 40-50 million years, lemurs have evolved in isolation on Madagascar, undergoing extensive adaptive radiation into many environments on the island and many niches in those environments, resulting in the huge variety of species on the island today. Isolated from other mammalian competitors, the lemurs didn’t have to compete with other arboreal species, like squirrels.

Ring-tailed Lemurs are a favorite in zoos. This individual (male?) checked us out before allowing his troop members to cross the trail in front of us.

Adventure in Eden

A couple of days into the Madagascar adventure now, and we’ve begun to appreciate the struggle between humans trying to survive and pristine nature trying to persist here. Recent conservation efforts have begun to preserve a lot of what was left after human exploitation of this unique island over the last few hundred years, and we hope to see a lot of that in the coming weeks. But for now, the view has been limited to the contrasts within the capital city of Antananarivo.

The view behind our hotel is one of extreme poverty, one room sheds, and crowded, probably unsanitary conditions.

While the view on the other side of the hotel features better looking housing, soccer fields, and lagoons that should have some wildlife (but we haven’t seen it).

Four-lane main roads carry all of the mid-day traffic, which varies from people transporting goods by cart, to bikes, motor scooters, cars, and trucks. Needless to say, traffic snarls make progress on the road extremely slow.

Local commerce with small stands for food, clothing, and other household goods block the sidewalks, so it isn’t really feasible to walk to a particular destination either.

One can get some respite from this scene by visiting some of the nature parks in the city, one of which was close to our hotel (about 2 km, or 1.2 miles) but took 25 minutes to drive there. Tsarasaotra Park is a private nature reserve established in 2001 by a family interested in the preservation of this area. Visitors pay an entrance fee to gain access to the hiking trail.

An island in the middle of the lake has dozens of Snowy Egrets, Squacco Herons, and Black Egrets nestled in the bushes and trees, as well as a huge number of ducks resting on the banks.

Bamboo and Eucalyptus provide nice shade on the walking path around the lake.

The lake is just teeming with ducks spreading out in an even layer over the entire surface of the shoreline.

Impatiens grow here into small shrubs, with thick woody bases.

Pointsettias here are trees! Jacaranda were also in full bloom.

The wildlife seems to tolerate us walking around the perimeter of the lake near them, so we got some good photos of a few of the species.

White-faced Whistling Ducks were very sedentary, mostly standing or sitting near the shoreline. They really do whistle, pretty much non-stop.

By far the most numerous ducks on the lake were the Red-billed Ducks.

About half the size of the Red-billed Ducks were the far less numerous Blue-billed Teal.

Squacco Herons were quite common on the island and we saw a few of them foraging out in patches of water hyacinth in the lake.

A few adult Black-crowned Night Herons sat near the shore of the lake, along with a couple of their juvenile offspring.

One exciting find here was the Malagasy Kingfisher, a brilliant little bird decked out in russet and deep purple.

Since Madagascar has been isolated from Africa, India, and Antarctica for so long, the wildlife that has survived human exploitation of the island is largely endemic, unique to just this place alone in the world. The kingfisher is just one of the many examples of endemic birds and other animals we will be seeing.