This post is not a 2018 Melbourne Cup field update!
However, it will answer a question that you probably have never asked:
How does an echidna scratch itself?
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All photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken on Wednesday May 16, 2018.
As you drive south, Ambalavao is the last major town in Madagascar’s central highlands.
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The final image excepted, all photos are candid, unposed.
All photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken in May 2018.
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A large, loud, and spectacularly agile rainforest-dwelling lemur, it is usually considered a single species, Varecia variegata.
Some argue that its three subspecies are so distinct that they should be classified as three species.
Alas, beyond argument is its/their status: critically endangered.
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The largest and loudest of living lemur species has to be heard to be believed!
Humpback whales are the oceans’ most prodigious “singers”; arguably, the Indri (Indri indri) is the grand champion “vocalist” among land mammals.
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This is a wee landscape sequel to the first lemur post (more lemur posts to come, soon)
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Looks rather like a Paris-styled raccoon.
(Primatologist Alison Jolly’s 1967 description of Madagascar’s emblematic mammal)
Lemur catta – the ring-tailed lemur – is the most “adaptable” of circa 107 lemur species.
However, like other lemurs, its post-1967 story is one of potentially catastrophic decline, mostly via destruction of suitable habitat.
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“Languid”, “calm”, “quiet”, “gentle”…could such words ever properly describe a market, let alone a butcher’s shop within one?
They did in fact fit our experience of the covered market in Antsirabe, late on the morning of 12 May 2018.
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Chapter Two is international, and includes a musical bonus – audio of two of my favourite rain songs. (one of them is an “unissued” version)
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Nearly half of the world’s circa 200 species of chameleon live only in Madagascar, including the most massive – Parson’s chameleon, Calumma parsoni.
Its spectacular ability to change colour is a means of communication rather than camouflage.
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