4 A2 madagascar

CHAPTER 1 The Red Island RED SOIL, AMAZING ANIMALS, AND UNIQUE PLANTS AND FLOWERS. MADAGASCAR, OR "THE RED ISLAND," IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND INTERESTING COUNTRIES ON EARTH. Would you like to go hiking in a rainforest in the morning and then swim with fish and turtles in the afternoon? Is your dream vacation watching whales jump out of the ocean while you swim? How about seeing 33 different kinds of lemurs? If you answered "yes," then Madagascar is the place for you! Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. It's a little bigger than Spain, but a little smaller than France. It is in the Indian Ocean, off the east coast of Africa. It has many different kinds of land, and because of that, it has amazing biodiversity. There are many kinds of plants and animals that live only on Madagascar.

Why is Madagascar unique? About 160 million years ago, India broke off from Africa. Then 80 million years ago a large piece of India broke off and became an island. Madagascar was born! The first people came to Madagascar much later— only 2,000 years ago. They probably came from Indonesia or Africa. The people of Madagascar are called the Malagasy. There are more than 20 different ethnic groups, but they all speak the Malagasy language. Many Malagasy also speak French because Madagascar was a French colony from 1896 to 1960.

CHAPTER 2 A Perfect Place for Animal Lovers MANY PEOPLE VISIT MADAGASCAR TO SEE ITS STRANGE AND WONDERFUL ANIMALS. If you like unusual animals, you'll love Madagascar. Because Madagascar is an island, far from other countries, many of its animals evolved in unique ways. Would you like to see a fossa? It's an animal that looks like both a cat and a dog. Or how about 30 different species of tenrec? It's like a mouse, but it has feathers like a bird! Chameleons are beautiful, interesting, and colorful animals. They can be red, blue, yellow, green, black, white, or brown. They change color with changes in the temperature or the light, and also when their mood changes. A happy chameleon might be green, but an angry chameleon might turn yellow.

A chameleon's tongue is two times longer than its body. That makes catching insects easy! And a chameleon's eyes are unique, too. A chameleon can move its eyes in different directions at the same time. This gives them an almost 360-degree view of the world. That helps them to catch insects, too! Almost half of the world's chameleon species live on Madagascar. It is the world's largest group of chameleons, and also the world's most unique. Fifty-nine species of Madagascar's chameleons are only found on Madagascar. But Madagascar's most popular animal is probably the lemur. A lemur is a primate, like a monkey. There are about 33 species of lemurs on Madagascar and most of them are not found anywhere else on Earth.

Lemurs are friendly some like to live with other lemurs, sometimes in groups of ten or more. When a group of lemurs travel through their environment, they keep their long tails in the air, like a flag. They do this so that it is easy to see each other and stay together as a group. Lemur species have many different sizes and shapes. The smallest is the pygmy mouse lemur. It's only 25 grams. The largest is the indri, which is six to nine kilograms.

Lemurs are very important for the ecology of Madagascar. They eat many different kinds of fruit. After they digest the fruit, they leave the seeds all around their environment. The seeds grow into new plants, fruit grows on the plants, lemurs eat the fruit, and the An aye-aye circle starts again. One of the most unusual species of lemur is the aye-aye. It has very big ears, big teeth, and a long middle finger. The aye-aye eats insect larvae. It climbs a tree and hits the tree with its long middle finger. Then it listens. If it hears insects moving inside the tree, it gnaws the tree with its big teeth until it gets to the larvae. The aye-aye has amazing ears. It can hear insect larvae move four meters inside the tree!