IN MADAGASCAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 131, 24 August 1927, Page 6

IN MADAGASCAR

Though Madagascar was at one time joined to Africa, it was separated so long ago that the wild life is now quite different from that of the continent. There are no lions or leopards, no hippopotami, clepha.nts or rhinoceros. Most of the wild creatures are small and not particularly dangerous. The worst is the fossa, an ugly beast of the cat tribe, Which has a small head, short legs with strong claws, and a very long, thick tail. It is a badtempered creature and the natives vow that it will attack any person who happens to be alone. Lemurs, monkey-like creatures of which there are many different sorts, are plentiful, and they are found in few other countries. The most puzzling animal is the aye-aye, about as large as a cat, with big bare ears, eyes which can see in the dark, rat-like teeth with which it cuts into treetrunks in search of the insects on which it feeds, and the most amazing, spiderylooking hands. The third finger is as thin as wire and used for picking out the grubs from the wood. It sleeps all day and feeds by night. Another queer creature is the tenrec. In New Zealand are found animals such as the hedgehog, which hibernate — that is, sleep through the winter. The tenrec, which is about a foot

long and lives chiefly on earth worms, has just the opposite habit —it sleeps through the hot weather and wakens when it becomes cool. Remains dug up in swampy places prove that there existed in Madagascar a huge, wingless bird which has been named aepyo.rnis. It would have made the biggest ostrich look small, for it was quite 14 feet high, and its eggs, of which many have been found, are three times the size of ostrich eggs. It is believed to have been living up to a few centuries ago.