Isalo is the most visited national park in Madagascar. Tourists come for the deep canyons, rare endemic plants and dry weather. And, of course, the wildlife.
Camouflage is a very common survival technique in Madagascar. Here are two observation challenges for you (answers at the end of the post). Let’s start with the easier one. There’s a stick insect in this image – can you find it?:
And now for something a little more difficult. Can you spot the spider on this branch?
My tally today also included another oustalet’s chameleon (also known by it’s much more impressive title of “Malagsy giant chameleon”):
A “lantern” insect:
A hoopoe (what a great name!):
Fire-resistant trees that make good firewood(!): their bark is fire-resistant, protecting the wood underneath that burns well. Extensive logging has endangered the species, which is also home to a variety of insects, so the problem was explained to the locals and pine and eucalyptus introduced as a substitute. I’m pleased to report that the tapia tree is now doing well:
Termite mounds:
And an ants’ nest:
Our guide, Roxy, explained the symbiotic relationship between ants and snakes. When the snake experiences skin problems, it’ll go into the ants’ hole where they scratch it. In return, the ants use the snake’s shed skin. Dead snakes are regularly found in ants’ nest but, contrary to popular belief, the ants don’t kill it – the snake goes there to die.
Isalo is a geologist’s dream – the rock formations are very impressive:
Roxy described how the landscape was formed, but I didn’t take my smartphone on this trip so wasn’t able to take notes (nor keep up with his explanation) so resolved to research this when I got home. [Update: I can’t find *anything* via Google about how the area evolved. Really. And the section on geology in my guidebook relates to the whole of Mada, not this region specifically. So, if there are any Madagascan geology experts out there, please do get in touch as I’d love to know the history of it all].
We first saw the ring-tailed lemurs in the trees:
And then lunch brought a visit from one, but it wasn’t scavenging and mostly ignored us:
One of the tourists was about to feed the lemur. “No, no, no, no, no”, I warned. She quickly backed off, looking very sheepish. Tourists’ stupidity threatens these creatures – you should never feed a wild animal. The problem can clearly be seen in Yosemite – tourists feed the bears to “get a good picture”, the bears come to rely on the food source, lose their fear of humans, become a danger and then have to be shot. A dead bear in exchange for a good photo, that the tourist will probably never look at again. Very sad.
The caterpillar in the salad at dinner was the final (unexpected) wildlife encounter of the day.
Other random stuff from today:
Whilst the others were eating breakfast, I got out my tube of suncream and started to methodically apply it to every bit of exposed skin (I’m quite an expert at this and can “cream up” in no time). An old Malagsy man who was walking past stopped, pointed and started laughing – not maliciously, but it was clearly tickling him! His laugh was infectious. The more suncream I applied, the more he laughed. I’m guessing he had no idea what I was doing, but I’m glad I made him happy. I’d have loved to know what was going through his head. Not for the first time, I wished I’d filmed the encounter.
And in case you’re interested, here’s the stick insect from the photo earlier:
And the spider (this one will blow your mind):
