Lemurs!!! (and other beasties)

This time I was strategic – I went a weekend early and arranged a trip with a travel agent to Andasibe, a national park about three hours from Antananarivo. The next weekend I went with one of my teammates to a nearby “Lemur Park” for a few hours.
The countryside is beautiful – Malagasy architecture is unlike any other I’ve seen in Africa, there is a lot of rice farming, and they farm on terraces, as in Asia.

On the way, we stopped at a reptile park, where they have lots of chameleons and some other critters. Chameleons are much fun to watch, especially darting out that long tongue for a juicy grasshopper or crawling on your arm, and range from the sublimely beautiful….
to… well, ugly is a harsh word, but… let’s just say I didn’t want him on my shoulder. This fellow is a member of the largest chameleon species. It turns out geckoes are not just those tiny lizards on your ceiling (or that little green guy that sells car insurance). Some of them are fairly large and look quite outlandish! Many have camouflage patterns that are incredible and look exactly like dry foliage

Madagascar is also known for its spectacular butterflies

Well, I have been promising lemurs, so here we go!
Andasibe is home to the indri indri, the largest lemur. It that has an estimated life span of 50 years, but absolutely refuses to eat in captivity, so the only place you can see it is its natural habitat in Madagascar. It has a haunting call that carries several miles.

The brown lemurs are a lot of fun to watch climb around. These are very bold!

The sifaka is a lemur that travels on its hind legs, both in the trees and on the ground, but it doesn’t walk, it jumps. Watching them bound along in great leaps, with their little white paws flapping in the air beside their heads, is one of the funniest sights I’ve ever seen. I wish I could post a video on this!

And finally, the aptly named bamboo lemur – these guys are so cute!