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.

This is a black and white ruffed lemur. This species was probably the most mischievous of all the lemurs I saw in Madagascar. On several occasions, I witnessed one of these guys moving in for a sneak attack on another species. This photo was taken on an island for rescued lemurs (appropriatey named Lemur Island) near the town of Perinet.

This little red-bellied lemur was very curious and allowed me to get close with a wide angle lens. I was in the town of Tamatave at a zoological park called Ivoloina. In addition to housing captive lemurs, Ivoloina is home to several species of free ranging lemurs that come and go as they please (including the red-bellied).

I photographed this warty chameleon in southern Madagascar at a place called Berenty Reserve. I guess the name comes from the warts on the casque on the top of its head. This was actually the first chameleon that I saw after being in the country for several days. I was getting worried I wouldn’t see any. Fortunately, I was wrong about that as I went on to see more than different species in the next 10 days.

The golden brown mouse lemur is highly endangered and I was very lucky to not only see one on this particular night hike, but to have it appear out of the thick forest for just long enough to get a couple of pictures. True to the name, they aren’t much bigger than a mouse, making them one of the smallest primates on the planet. They live in the dry western forests of Madagascar and are strictly nocturnal.

Here is another shot of a fanaloka, one of the few larger mammals that I saw in Madagascar that wasn’t a lemur. They are nocturnal and very secretive but at Ranomafana National Park in central Madagascar, they come creeping around a picnic area looking for leftover scraps. Fanalokas are the size of a large housecat and they resemble a fox, but they are more closely related to the mongoose.

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