Mammals

A very special inhabitant of Madagascar is the Votsotsa. It looks like a mixture of a rabbit, a kangaroo, and a rat. Big ears, cute black button eyes, a partly jumping locomotion and a hardly hairy, narrow tail. In fact, the Votsotsa belongs to the Madagascar rats, a separate genus that only lives in Madagascar. It is the largest rodent …

Sportive Lemurs are everywhere in Madagascar. But every place has its own species. In the far north of Madagascar, in the dry forests of Ankarana, lives the eponymous Ankarana Sportive Lemur (Lepilemur ankaranensis). It is widespread as far as the nearby rainforests and dry forests of the Amber Mountain as well as Analamerana and Manongarivo and is only about 25 …

Not half a meter tall, having with two kilos the weight of a small cat and pitch black colored: These are black lemurs (Eulemur macaco). However, only the males are black. The females of have little to do with the name. Their coat is reddish brown, only their face and hands are black, the first one framed by a white …

The lemurs with the orange crown of fur on their heads may be the smallest of the true lemurs, but they compensate for this with curiosity and adaptability: Crowned Lemurs (Eulemur coronatus). They will not weigh more than one and a half to two kilograms and are only 35 cm tall. The gentlemen of these lemurs wear a black fur …

Most animals that only occur in Madagascar are very special. Also the streaked tenrec has its peculiarities and is considered to be the most highly specialized of all 31 tenrec species. They belong to the hedgehog tencres – they have spines like hedgehogs, but are actually not even related to the hedgehogs. Also the spines are not completely genuine: It …

One does not often meet red-bellied lemurs (Eulemur rubriventer) in Madagascar, but they play an important role in the rainforest’s fragile ecosystem. Only male wear the eponymic red belly, females are white or cream colored on chest and belly. Males also have white fur below their eyes which lacks in females. At average, red-bellied lemurs weigh one and a half …

In red-fronted lemurs, colour has been distributed inequally: Only males bear the eponymic red forehead. In females, this area is grey coloured. Both genders weigh between two and three kilograms and become only half a meter in size, measured without tail. Until 2008, scientists thought the red-fronted lemur to be a subspecies of the similar looking rufous brown lemur or …

They are the unofficial mascots of Madagascar and probably the most famous Malagasy lemurs: The ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta). Their portraits grace the logo of Madagascar National Parks (MNP), countless t-shirts and company emblems. A full grown ring-tailed lemur weighs maximally 3.5 kg. The ringed tail is with 60 cm longer than the whole body which is only 40-45 cm. …

Many people know them from zoos and animal parks: Black-and-white ruffed lemurs (Varecia variegata). Besides Red Ruffed Lemurs and the Indri, they belong to the largest lemurs with a head-torso length of 40 to 60 cm, an additional 60 cm added for the tail. Weights of 3 to 4 kg are the average. Black-and-white ruffed lemurs exclusively live in the …

Their songs belong to the most impressive that animal kingdom has: You can hear the Indris’ (Indri indri) voices in the forest kilometers away, and the sound a little sad. The parent couple of a family always starts the songs, thus marking its territory, communicating with other families and warning their own family members of potential hazards such as birds …