After selecting this image for today’s photo of the day, I realized that an awful lot of my recent postings feature an animal staring directly at the camera. Because of this I was going to try and find something else, but then I remembered the particular challenge of photographing eastern grey bamboo lemurs in the wild. It wasn’t easy. These guys are quick. I remember running through the forest with my guide as the eastern greys kept darting from one tree to another. Finally I got this guy to stay still for a second and I was able to get a quick shot. As with all lemurs, the eastern grey bamboo lemurs are prosimians, meaning literally pre-monkeys. Also including tarsiers and bushbabies, prosimians are primates that pre-date the monkeys and apes that flourished in the rest of the world — in the case of lemurs, away from the geographic isolation of Madagascar.

The comet moth is one of the largest moths in the world. It has two sets of “false eyes” on its furry wings — an adaptation to confuse predators. These guys are native to Madagascar, and this one was photographed one morning in Ranomafana National Park.

This is a black and white ruffed lemur, one of the 23 different species that I was lucky enough to photograph while in Madagascar. The ringtail is certainly the most well known lemur, but this guy is probably second. At about four feet from head to tail it is also one of the largest of the lemurs — and from my observation,  one of the most personable and mischievous.

The indri is the largest remaining lemur in existence, standing just shy of four feet tall. It is famous for its very loud and distinctive song which can usually be heard early in the morning throughout its range in northeastern Madagascar.

Click to hear what it sounds like:

indri.mp3

(sound file © 2000 David Parks and Larry Barnes http://www.mobot.org/mobot/madagascar/)

One of the reasons Madagascar is my favorite place on earth is that everything is different. Not just all the endemic animals that are found nowhere else on the planet, but all the plants, the flowers, the trees, the rock formations, the landscape in general that looks and feels like nowhere else. I’ve been so many places now that I can be on safari in eastern Africa and suddenly feel like I’m in southern Australia, or even driving down a stretch of road in Nebraska (until, of course, an elephant walks across the road). It would be impossible for me to convey that sense of otherworldliness in a photo, but I can at least attempt a few small glimpses. These are verreaux’s sifaka lemurs in Madagascar’s southern spiny forest. There’s nothing quite like hiking through the woods surrounded by these exotic animals and  the tall, thorny trees that are everywhere with their pipe cleaner like branches that extend randomly in every direction.

They call this one the common brown lemur. In my estimation a rather pedestrian name for such a fine lemur. Of course, as with all lemurs, it’s from Madagascar.

This is an old one from Madagascar. The Verreaux’s sifaka is definitely one of my favorites lemurs. They spend most of their time in trees but dance across the ground — ballet style — when they need to get from place to place. I took this photo right outside of the lodge I was staying in at the extreme southern tip of the island.

Before I get to this good looking red frog, you might have noticed that the blog looks different today. I’ve been trying all sorts of things over the weekend to integrate it into a regular website. Everything is still in the works and unfortunately, in the process, I lost my subscribers list. I added back all those that I was able to save but if you didn’t get an email, please re-subscribe at the bottom of the page.

As for the frog, I posted a similar shot a couple of years ago. This is a tomato frog from Madagascar. This one is the female. She is much larger and more colorful than the brownish male.

The coloring of panther chameleons varies from region to region in Madagascar. Unlike the males, that come in every color from red and green, to blue, the females are usually brownish in appearance. Or, like this one, a nice orange color.