Geography isolation results in highly evolved and diversed organisms
- ~ 200,000 known species
- ~ 150,000 of them are endemic - that means they are found nowhere else on earth!!
Let the pictures speak for themselves!!
- Madagascar has "only" 258 bird species, although 115 of these are endemic (with 36 endemic genera, Madagascar has more unique genera than any other African country. Madagascar also possesses five endemic families of birds). (wildmadagascar.org)
Sleeping sunbird
Madagascar paradise flycatcher
Asio madagascariensis owl
- Famous for being a home for lemurs (a primate that looks like a combination of cat, dog, mouse, and squirrel)
- Little competition and predation so they were able to strive quite easily
- 99 species and subspecies (2008)
- 17 species went extinct because of human colonization since the past 2000 years
- More new species are being discovered
- Highly intelligent and adaptive
Mouse lemur (Microcebus mittermeieri - newly described lemur, 2006)
White-footed lepilemur (Lepilemur leucopus)
The famous Ring-tailed lemurs paddycake 
Indri lemur in Andasibe
Sanford's Brown (Eulemur sanfordi)
Aye aye lemur (said to be one of the most ugliest species)
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0116-hance_ayeaye.html
- Other animals
Boophis viridis frog at Andasibe
Mantidactylus asper leaf frog on Nosy Mangabe
Mantella laevigata
Ghost Mantis (Phyllocrania paradoxa)
Pill Millipede Ball
Leaf mimic insect
Orange and white thorn spider
Hemicentetes semispinosus tenrec
Furcifer balteatus chameleon
Calumma parsonii chameleon
Uroplatus fimbriatus gecko on Nosy Mangabe
Source; http://www.springerlink.com/content/c11g1n6365566u17/
http://www.wildmadagascar.org/wildlife/html
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