Chameleons And Other Lizards In Madagascar
The Dear Wonderful Hubby arranged for a world renowned naturalist to show the two of us a bit of Madagascar. This naturalist’s main area of expertise is reptiles.
Which meant, to my delight, we saw SO MANY chameleons and other lizards. (grins)
Look at this little dinosaur going for a very slow, shaky walk! (grins)
This little guy is clinging to his tree.
This one is fully exposed and sunning himself.
This chameleon was challenging to spot.
As was this one!
Look at this chameleon’s tail!
This chameleon was TINY! And look at his nose!
There were other lizards also.
The lizards, like this one, could be as challenging to spot as the chameleons were.
Sometimes they stood out, however. (grins)
Or were upside down.
Or were tiny. This little guy was the width of a dragonfly.
Madagascar is definitely a great place for reptile watching! We had SUCH a great time!
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Lemurs In Madagascar
The Dear Wonderful Hubby arranged for the two of us to go on a private tour with a world renowned naturalist in Madagascar. This naturalist has appeared in many documentaries and often shows scientists and other visitors the land he clearly loves and knows VERY well.
He took us to the Amber Mountain National Park and…we saw lemurs! (And a gazillion other critters and plants)
We saw two large groups of them. They were in the trees but clearly visible. They were cuddling with their babies and chattering. There was much fruit eating and some sh*tting (NEVER look upward with your mouth open. The naturalist told us how some visitors learned that lesson the hard way. – grins).
Very few visitors, unfortunately, saw lemurs even though our naturalist tried to help the other guides find them. But many of those groups could be heard from far away. And those visitors were unable to move off the main paths.
Wild lemurs prefer to avoid humans.
One lady was exhausted and crying because seeing lemurs in the wild was her purpose for the tour she’d taken and it was unlikely she’d do that. I felt bad for her.
But there is never any guarantee of seeing wild animals. Stars. The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I have trekked around countless Northern Ontario (Canada) boreal forests and he has yet to see a moose in the wild. I’ve seen countless numbers of them but only when I’ve been without him. Not seeing any wildlife IS a possibility. (Which is why I love that I love plants and trees also. They are usually stationary.)
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Galileo, An Aldabra Giant Tortoise In Madagascar
The Dear Wonderful Hubby linked up with a naturalist and he showed the two of us around a bit of Madagascar. One of the stops this naturalist arranged for us to have was at Le Domaine de Fontenay Lodge.
This is the home of Galileo, an Aldabra giant tortoise, (the naturalist explained that he toured around with a world renowned reptile expert when that expert first visited Madagascar and that was how he ‘met’ Galileo).
Stars, was Galileo HUGE! He reminded us of the brontosauruses in Jurassic Park. He walked and moved the same way.
We could get into his stone pen with him. We didn’t touch him because we didn’t want to infect or injure him in any way but he touched us. (grins) He wasn’t shy about that, especially when he was looking for bananas!
Every person we talked to assigned Galileo a different age. One person told us he was 300 years old. According to the internet, Aldabra giant tortoises tend to only live to 120 so that IS possible but is unlikely. (laughs) He’s still seen some sh*t, however. We could see that in his eyes.
He’s the only Aldabra giant tortoise at Le Domaine de Fontenay Lodge and I felt a bit bad about that. But there are MUCH smaller tortoises in his pen so he isn’t all alone. He has some company!
Topics: Madagascar, Travel | Comments Off on Galileo, An Aldabra Giant Tortoise In Madagascar
