Madagascar Information; Call of Africa Safaris

MADAGASCAR

MADAGASCAR - The largest of the Indian Ocean Islands, Madagascar is a land rich in diversity, from the genteel, unique people with a rich cultural background, to its natural wonders and endemic plant and wildlife species.

Madagascar is the world's 4th largest Island, with a population of approximately 13 million inhabitants, and contains a variety of climatic and floral zones varying from damp rain forests to semi-arid deserts and is one of the great undeveloped and undiscovered adventure destinations in the world.

The island started to move away from the mainland of Africa about 200 million years ago and as it drifted away into the Indian Ocean it look a large number of animal and plant species and is thus a veritable Noah's Ark, carrying an bewildering assortment of species into evolutionary exile.

HIGHLIGHTS

Its rainforests are among the densest in the world and the island is home to 20% of Africa's plant species of which 90% are endemic.

Aye-Aye and Tenrecs (spiny hedgehogs), the largest of all lemurs, the ape-like Indris and endemic birds like Tylas, Nuthatch, the extraordinary Velvet Asity Giraffe -Necked Weevil, the Golden Mantilla Frog and the two-foot long Parson's Chameleon are all part of the island's rare and unique wildlife.

About 2000 years ago, man arrived on the island, from Malaysia, Polynesia, India and more recently Africa, which then began to change the face of Madagascar as they settled, hunted and cleared the forests to farm rice and graze cattle. It's this rich mix of heritages which make up the friendly Malagas peoples of modern Madagascar.

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