![]() The lemurs of Madagascar have evolved with the island, influencing the plant life, and filling every available niche to for an astoundingly diverse superfamily of multitudinous shapes and sizes. The IUCN currently recognizes 107 species of lemurs, but their classification is an ongoing process that incorporates new knowledge and research on a regular basis. Yet it is the primate species of Madagascar – the lemurs – that are the island’s real “flagship” species. The island is home to over 300 recorded species of birds (60% of which are endemic) and 260 species of reptile – including two-thirds of the world’s chameleon species. The island is so large, and its environment so diverse, that some have even argued that it should be considered the world’s eighth continent. The inevitable outcome of this geographic isolation is that 90% of the island’s fauna and flora are endemic, with phenomenal biodiversity that is quite literally worlds apart for anything else on the planet. For the last 88 million years, life on Madagascar has been on its own, an island of evolutionary oddities that includes the family of lemurs. Then, around 47 million years later, Madagascar broke away from India and settled itself off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. ![]() ![]() Some 135 million years ago, gradual but enormous forces broke apart the supercontinent Gondwana, and a landmass consisting of present-day Madagascar, India, Antarctica, and Australia drifted away from Africa.
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