Animal Attraction

Question: What percentage of Madagascar’s wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth?

Answer: 90%

It’s difficult to wrap your head around it, but a remarkable 90% of all wildlife on the island of Madagascar is endemic—found nowhere else on Earth. Breaking it down further, 92% of the island’s mammals and 95% of its reptiles are endemic to the island. As if that wasn’t enough, 89% of Madagascar’s plant species are also found nowhere else. How is that even possible?

If you look on a map, Madagascar is plunked in the Indian Ocean about 250 miles east of southern Africa. It’s considered part of the African continent, but it really shouldn’t be. Madagascar was once part of the Indian subcontinent until about 88 million years ago, when it broke off from India and never looked back. Adrift since then, all the native plants and animals in Madagascar evolved in complete isolation. There wasn’t even any human presence on the island until about 1,500 years ago—when initial settlers began arriving in outrigger canoes from Southeast Asia.

Because it’s dwarfed by Africa on a map, Madagascar may not look all that big. But it’s actually the world’s fourth largest island (after Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo) and is often referred to as a “mini continent.” Its remarkable biodiversity, and range of geography and climate—from lush rainforests and dry deserts to grassy plains—make it one of the few “megadiverse” countries in the world. But it’s all that indigenous flora and fauna that are the real stars of Madagascar.

Madagascar’s breakout homegrown celebrity

As anyone familiar with the 2005 animated classic Madagascar can tell you, if there’s one animal the island is known for, it’s lemurs. The oldest living primates in the world, lemurs are only found in Madagascar—but it’s not just those ring-tailed ones you always see in pictures. With no mammals as competition, lemurs thrived on the island, evolving into many different shapes and sizes. More than 100 species and subspecies of lemurs call Madagascar home. They range anywhere from an indri lemur tipping the scales at more than 20 pounds to the tiny Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur that hardly moves the needle, weighing in at about an ounce. But if you had visited Madagascar before any humans got there, you might have run into lemurs the size of male gorillas—giving you the impression you took a wrong turn and landed on Skull Island from King Kong.

Chameleons may not be as popular as those tree-swinging primates—maybe because they blend in too much—but Madagascar is also home to half of the world’s 150 species of insect-eating lizards. The world’s largest chameleon, the Parson’s chameleon, which can reach two feet in length, lives in Madagascar; as does the world’s smallest, the Brookesia nana, which is well under an inch. Before the Brookesia nana’s recent discovery, the smallest known chameleon in Madagascar was called the Brookesia micra—also quite tiny, the little guy could perch on the head of a matchstick.

Another interesting character you’ll only find on Madagascar is called the fossa. The largest carnivorous mammal on the island, the fossa has big cat-like paws, a long monkey-like tail, and round weasel-like ears. Closely related to the mongoose, this strange creature can weigh more than 20 pounds and hangs out both on the ground and in the trees. Dedicated carnivores, fossas will snack on a variety of small-sized animals, but guess what their favorite food is? Yep, lemurs ...

This sedentary resident runs rings around the wildlife

Maybe you saw a baobab tree or two in Tanzania. As impressive as they are, they’re nothing like the ancient giants in Madagascar. Six of the world’s eight species of baobab (Adansonia) are found only in Madagascar (only one species is found in mainland Africa). And Madagascar is home to the most famous of them all, Adansonia grandidieri—the Giant Baobab. The national tree of Madagascar, these towering bad boys soar close to 100 feet high, have massive, cylindrical trunks up to 10 feet across, with a distinctive crown of scraggly branches that explains the creation myths that call it “the tree the gods planted upside down.” And they live more than 1000 years—one in Madagascar, called “grandmother,” is estimated to be 1,600 years old.

Not to end on too much of a down note, but like the rest of the planet, this enchanting island with some of the richest biodiversity in the world is beginning to suffer from the effects of global warming. Thousands of the island’s plants and animals face environmental threats—including the aforementioned lemurs, chameleons, and baobab trees. A recent study in Nature Communications said that if all of Madagascar’s unique mammals died out, it would take another 23 million years for a comparable group of mammals to evolve.

Ten more fascinating facts about Madagascar

• Flora, fauna, and people, too—The indigenous people of Madagascar are known as the Malagasy, with ancestries that trace back to Southeast Asia, Africa, and India. For centuries, several small kingdoms ruled different areas of the island. France invaded in 1883, broke up the competing kingdoms, and made it a French colony in 1896. After World War II, locals began fighting the French (known as the Malagasy Uprising) and Madagascar became an independent nation in 1960.
• Name game—The name “Madagascar” was first coined by the 13th-century Venetian explorer Marco Polo, when he confused the island with the Somali port city of Mogadishu, which he then misspelled in his writings as “Madageiscar.” The Malagasy alphabet has no “c,” and Malagasy people refer to their island as “Madagasikara.”
• Bring out your dead!—The Malagasy have a sacred ritual known as famadihana, or “turning of the bones.” In a ceremony performed every five to seven years, people retrieve their ancestors’ remains and rewrap them in fresh burial clothing. Then, with the corpse lifted over their heads and music playing, they dance around for a while before returning the body to the family tomb.
• The first rule of fight club ...—Moraingy, which is still practiced today, is a bare-knuckled, bare-footed combat sport deeply rooted in Malagasy culture. Originally developed for warrior training and rite of passage ceremonies, matches usually end when one fighter is unable to go on. There are few rules (kicking and headbutting are allowed), but unsportsmanlike conduct is frowned upon.
• Numb, numb—Madagascar’s national dish is called romazava. Served with rice, romazava is a hearty stew made with zebu meat (a type of horned ox), tomatoes, onions, and local greens including paracress—also known as “toothache plant” for its mouth-numbing properties.
• Who wants vanilla?—Madagascar supplies about 80% of the world’s natural vanilla, which accounts for 25% of the country’s exports.
• That’s a lot of omelets—To construct the outer walls of Madagascar’s Rova, a hilltop fortress-palace and UNESCO World Heritage Site, a cement was used made from a mixture of sand, shells, and a few egg whites—16 million of them.
• Pole position—The oldest extant structure at Rova, the King’s Palace, has a central pole supporting its roof made from a single trunk of palisander (rosewood), said to have been carried from Madagascar’s east coast by 2,000 enslaved people, 100 of whom died in the process. Carved at the top of the pole is a pair of women’s breasts, a symbol of the king’s polygamy. His Highness is said to have hidden in the rafters when guests arrived and would signal to his wife whether they were welcome or not by dropping pebbles on her head. As to which wife, we’re not sure ...
• Flower power—The Madagascar periwinkle is more than just a pretty flower. Used as a folk remedy for centuries, recent studies have shown that it greatly increases survival rates for childhood leukemia and Hodgkins’ disease. It is now used in chemotherapy treatment for many different types of cancers.
• Seeing red—Because of the iron-rich soils that dominate its central highlands, Madagascar has a distinctive reddish tint when viewed from outer space. Thus, Madagascar is often referred to as “The Great Red Island.”

Discover both biodiversity and local culture in Madagascar on our new Madagascar's Natural Wonders: Lemurs, Rainforests & Baobabs adventure.