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.