Madagascar is known as the Great Red Island. It is located about 500 miles East of the coast of Africa from Dar Es Salam. It is the forth largest island in the world. It is made up of a red rock that crumbles into red dirt. Rains wash the red dirt into rivers, turning them red. More than 100 million years ago, Madagascar broke away from the continent of Africa. For thousands of years it inched away from the mainland of Africa. During that time the plants and animals slowly changed, eventually looking different from many of the plants and animals of Africa.

One is the Baobob tree. It grows in other parts of the world, but not quiet the same way as in Madagascar. In other parts of the world, the Baobob tree has a narrow trunk and a full crown of branches. In Madagascar the tree has a huge fat trunk. Some as large as 75 feet across with a tapering effect the taller it is and are topped by scraggly branches that look more like roots. Imagine three grown elephants lined up nose to tail in one line, and they would not be as wide as the tree. Baobob's can live for thousands of years. The are called the upside down tree.

[Editor’s Note: If you would like a quick look at a Baobob Tree, click over to Dan Heller's web site at URL
http://www.danheller.com/images/Africa/Tanzania/Tarangire/Misc/Slideshow/img29.html
and use your back button to return.]

Madagascar has some strange animals. The Babakoto which means "cousin to man" in their language. It is a type of Lemur and is related to the primate family of apes, monkeys and human beings. The Babakoto has a furry black and white coat and uses its long powerful legs to leap from tree to tree. They catch branches with their feet which have a thumb like a human hand!

[Editor’s Note: If you would like a quick look at some Babakotos, click over to this URL
http://www.geocities.com/Sharna_Kestral/Classification/indri.html
and use your back button to return.]

Perhaps the strangest looking Lemur is the Aye Aye. It looks like it was made from body parts of different animals. It has teeth like a rodent, eyes like an owl, a bushy tail like a fox and ears like a bat. Sounds like inbreeding to me!