Wildlife Encounters in Madagascar
Operation Wallacea works by conducting research with the help of local villagers and in-country universities and brings in experts from various fields to conduct research. Students from university or high school will participate in trips with teachers or as an independent expedition to learn valuable skills in scientific research. On this expedition, we had entomologists, ornithologists, mammologists, forest ecologists, and my team, the herpetologists. There are two Operation Wallacea sites in Madagascar, but the other is on an island in the north dedicated to marine life. Ours was the first stop for the students, and then they typically will continue onto the islands in the north. The research I would participate in started at 8:00 in the morning and led a walk through the 1-6 transects we had set up at this camp. We would ID (identify)species of reptiles and amphibians we had seen and add that to a tablet that recorded the GPS (its distance from the trail), as well as what species it was. We always came back before 12:30 and would go back out again for night hikes at 19:00.
We had two other locations from the basecamp in Mariarano. We had the Mangrove site, which researched the mangrove forests and had more boat surveys, and then we had the Highlands site, which had a large lake nearby. I spent most of my time at the basecamp but visited the mangrove site twice and the lake site once. This area of Madagascar was more arid and has tropical dry forests. The days were extremely hot, ranging from 32 °C (90 °F) and then dropped to 19 °C (66 °F) at night. You would go to sleep uncomfortably hot and sweaty and wake up at midnight to put on extra layers. We had an amazing time with all these great people frolicking around one of the most unique places on our planet. I love to describe Madagascar as if Dr. Suess had control over creating the fauna and flora because they are so different from anything you encounter in the rest of the world. Of course, during my adventures there, I encountered these extraordinary endemic animals, so I would like to share my favorites.
Madagascan Leaf-Nosed Snake
For enthusiasts of reptiles and serpents, (as I am), one species stands out above the rest: the distinguished Madagascan leaf-nosed snake (Langaha madagascariensis). What is amazing about these snakes is that they are sexually dimorphic, meaning you can tell the males and females apart by looking at them. The males have a brown back with a yellow belly, and then a long pointed scaled appendage is at the tip of their nose. The females are grey with blotching and have a leaf shape appendage on their nose. The theory for this appendage is that it helps hide the snakes’ contour as they are lizard hunters, making it harder for lizards to see the approaching snake. I was lucky to see around six of them, both male and female, and captured beautiful photos showing the difference between the sexes.
Henkel’s Leaf-tailed gecko
At the top of the list were any of the larger leaf-tailed geckos. These incredible geckos are some of the largest species found in the world and have a tail that flattens to look like a leaf. What I found most incredible, though, is that they have skin flaps that hang off their edges and are rigid, and when the gecko is resting, these skin flaps lay down on the bark of a tree, making the animal almost invisible. That extra bit of skin allows the animal to hide its contour lines completely. There are various species of them, and I would love to have seen them all, but this was the largest one in the area I was in. It took me a while to find my first one by myself as they are very cryptic. There was one transect we had where they could be found, and the trick was to look about 1 meter from the ground, and they would be tilted to the side in a hunting position. This allowed them to keep one eye on the ground and one looking up in search of food as well as to avoid predators. One thing that stands out is they have the craziest looking eyes of any organism. Their eyes have very intricate lines to help them camouflage since geckos have no eyelids.
Indri Lemur
This list has to highlight the lemurs, an endemic group of primates that live in the area. These amazing animals have evolved from a single ancestor when Madagascar split from mainland Africa and have diversified to live in every niche on the island. The largest species of lemur alive today is the Indri Lemur. They can reach around 70cm tall and weigh around 9kg. These species are exclusively located in the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, situated in the eastern region of the country. They are critically endangered due to habitat loss. When visiting the national park, you will wake up early and get into the forest to watch them make their amazing call. The lemurs live in pairs and will have no more than two young, and when the young grow of age, they will leave. Every morning, though, the pairs of Indri will call out to the forest to mark their territory. This is one of the animal kingdom's most beautiful and interesting calls.
Sifaka Lemur
If you grew up in the 90s, there was an iconic trio on a TV show called Zoboomafoo, which had the Kratt brothers as the host and their lemur companion Zoboomafoo, a sifaka lemur. Sifaka Lemurs are iconic as they are the lemurs that will skip on the ground to move from place to place. They do this more often in the drier forests as there is more open ground to cover and a lack of dense trees. While eating lunch, sometimes a troop would move through our camp and use the wooden support beams of the hut to jump from place to place. I saw many lemurs there and even woke up to find them relieving themselves on my tent. There are multiple species of sifaka, including the one we had at the camps. The species we saw were the Coquerel’s Sifaka. But I need to highlight another species we saw, the Diademed sifaka, which was in the same area as the Indri lemur. These can be distinguished by their golden hue on the sides and woolly coats, which are characteristic of species residing in higher elevations. Both these species are critically endangered.
Madagascar Tree Boa
These tree boa species were not on my radar, but they quickly became one of my favorite snakes to interact with on the trip. Depending on the regions of Madagascar where they are found, they will have distinct colors. The ones in our area were more brown and yellow, while they were greener in the east. This makes sense due to the coloration of the vegetation. Something that surprised me while I was there was that the snakes were not aggressive when caught. I was only bitten three times while I was there because most of the snakes had a very calm demeanor. This could be because they do not have many mammalian-based predators or large animals on the island from which they would need to defend themselves. While during a night hike in a dried riverbed, I spotted one high up in a tree. I climbed up the tree about 10 meters from the ground and got the snake out. This was the largest one I have seen and was around 1.7 meters long. If you grabbed a boa of this size anywhere else in the world, you would be bitten in the face, but this one was a gentle giant.
Oustalets Chameleon
The second largest species of chameleon found on the island is the Oustalets or Malagasy Giant Chamaeleon. I found quite a few of these beautiful cryptic lizards. One may think chameleons can blend perfectly with whatever the background is behind them, but that is false. Their colors are more reflective of their mood and, even if they are brightly colored, their movements and patterns can confuse the eyes of most predators. The females of this species are more colorful than the males and were green and yellow; I even found a blue one. The males, on the other hand, were more grey, white, brown, and red. I found an exceptionally large one that fit on my forearm. This male was so big, and I named him Klaus because he had all the Christmas colors. Chameleons have an interesting place in Malagasy culture. They are connected to the spirits and your ancestor’s souls are in them. Madagascar is full of very weird superstitions.
Malagasy Fishing Eagle
The Malagasy fishing eagle is one of the rarest animals I have ever seen. Their populations have nearly vanished due to habitat loss from mangrove forests being cleared for charcoal production. There are an estimated 120 breeding pairs left in the wild. I saw a nest and photographed the parents as well as their young from the current and previous seasons. Observing this rare bird was a special experience.
Spear Point Leaf-Tailed Gecko
All leaf-tailed geckos belong to the genus Uroplatus, and the smallest of these extraordinary geckos is the spear-point leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus ebenaui). We saw so many of these beautiful little geckos. They also came in all earthy colors, including yellow, brown, red, orange, blonde, grey, and black. I usually would see around three to five every time I went on a night hike and always enjoyed watching them in hunting mode.
Nile Crocodile
Crocodilians have a special place in my heart because they are one of my favorite creatures on the planet. They are prehistoric and have remained virtually unchanged. It has always been a goal of mine to see every crocodile species on the planet, so checking the Nile crocodiles off my list in Madagascar was amazing. We would see them during our surveys in the mangrove camp. We had an upstream and downstream route that we would do depending on the tide. The first transect would be done in the morning and then we would do another at night. During one of the upstream transects, we first spotted a crocodile in the low tides, and it was only 2-3 meters long, but notable because the first thing you notice is that they have the greenest eyes you will ever see. The craziest encounter was at night, though. We came to the bank and spotted a small individual around a meter long. We had caught a couple of small ones before, but now it was my turn. I got ready on the boat's bow and leapt onto the bank of the river. Well, after a couple of steps, I was down to my waist in the mud and could not move anymore. There was a small crocodile on the bank under the brush, so our Malagasy captain, who we called El Capitan, who was half my size, basically jumped on the bank and, like Jesus on water, levitated on the mud and caught the crocodile all while I was struggling to get out of the mud and back on the boat. After we finished our transect, on the way back, we spotted an exceptionally large crocodile. I guessed the crocodile was around 4 meters, because he was longer than the boat and as we passed over him in the clear water, with our lights, we could see him perfectly sitting on the bottom. I looked at the shore, and my tracks stood out in the mud. This guy probably heard me struggling and came to investigate, which gave me an eerie feeling. Scientists are investigating whether the Nile crocodiles in Madagascar, separated from the mainland for a long time, are a distinct species or subspecies. There is also a cool special by National Geographic on the Nile crocodiles here that exclusively live in caves and barely ever see light. During a cave mapping expedition, divers discovered the skull of an ancient crocodile species. There are so many fascinating things that come out of this country.
Madagascan Ground Boa
The two largest snakes on the island are the Dumerils boa and the Ground boa. The Dumerils boa are found in the south, but the Ground boa was in our location in the northwest. During one of my transects, we found an individual around 1.8 meters long stretched across the road. A boa or python of this size anywhere else in the world would want to strike and defend itself, but here I picked it up, and it was oddly calm. We brought this one back to camp to get measurements, and everyone had a blast seeing and admiring this beautiful animal.
Malagasy Giant Hognose Snake
One of the main projects I worked on while in Madagascar was studying the Malagasy Giant hognose snake. There are only two venomous snakes in Madagascar: Giant and Blonde hognose snakes. These snakes are not fatal to humans but have venom they use to immobilize frogs and lizards that they typically feed on. With my experience tracking snakes, we would go out during the day and catch one of these snakes. Then, we would place the snake in a pillowcase with UV powder, give it a shake, and release the snake. Then at night, we would head to the same spot of release and use a GPS to track the movements of the snakes. What is interesting about these snakes is that the males fight for territory over the females, almost like having a harem. I found a huge male who was easily around 180- 190cm and was longer than me. These were the only snakes that would truly try to bite you. They even flatten out their heads to look like cobras when threatened, but after handling and once they realized you were not a threat, they would calm down and be tame. The local villagers in the area were baffled by my ability to tame the snakes, and I was nicknamed Bibilava, which means snake in Malagasy. One interesting encounter with this snake happened when I was greeting about 100 new students who had just shown up. Our country manager Rachel asked me to entertain the new group while the camp team figured out tents for everyone. I was calmly handling the hog nose and talking about how nice the snakes are here when I felt a sharp pain and saw that this bastard had chomped onto my right pointer finger and tugged back. I felt the fang before he let go. It was a deep slice, and from the burning session and amount of blood, I knew I got envenomated. Luckily for me, I do not have a strong reaction to venom as I have been bitten and stung by many different animals. My finger did swell a bit, and I had some discoloration, but I was fine. I have a small scar on my finger to remind me of that silly moment.
