Why thousands of tourists travel to Madagascar

I think everyone guessed right away. This, of course, lemurs!

Just like in the famous cartoon.

The same smart, curious and sociable.

Often not afraid of people jumping on your shoulders for a selfie and to "share" a banana from your hand.

And it's really mimimi level 89.

Madagascar is the patrimony of the lemurs. There are many species living here right in nature, all over the island.

You can see lemurs by chance in the forest, just like we have a squirrel, or get to know them in special theme parks, where animals are used to people and enjoy talking to them, let themselves be stroked and fed with bananas.

One of the most famous national parks with lemurs is located near the town of Andacib. This is the Lemur Island private park near Vakona forest lodge. Here, the organizers successfully used the natural islands, washed by wide river channels, creating a natural closed reservation in which about ten species of lemurs live. Having created additional channels, they divided large islands into smaller ones, populating each of them with different types of lemurs.

To get to the island, you will have to use a pie managed by the ranger of the park, which will take you to one or another island to the place where lemurs like to come to observe tourists, pose for them on cameras and treat themselves with brought bananas.

This is one of the most common lemurs in Madagascar - varika, or ordinary brown lemur.

It lives in the southeast of the island, from the Mananara River near Vanguaindrano, in the south to Fort Dauphin.

Varika is not the biggest lemur. It is the size of a cat and even resembles cats in some ways.

Brown lemurs live in groups of 3 to 12 individuals.

They met us first on the island. Moreover, neither cold morning rain nor our rather large group interfered with them. They knew that tourists empty-handed do not come. And whoever meets first will get the most attention and bananas.

For the sake of bananas, lemurs jump onto their shoulders, climb onto their heads, and even sometimes, carefully hanging from branches, try to grab a banana from their fingers that you hold out to a completely different animal.

In general, tailed ones have fun.
Varika is so used to people here that they are not a bit shy and do whatever they want. But, we must pay tribute, they are not at all impudent, like Asian monkeys, do not try to steal anything, do not scratch or bite tourists.

Although ... no, they still steal) One especially arrogant lemur, while we were photographing his relatives, managed to get into our canoe and squeeze the banana.

In general, banana eaters are still varic.

But you shouldn’t be especially zealous with bananas and treat them to lemurs, otherwise the animals will overeat and may even get sick ...

Rangers try to control this process and at some point begin to warn and even hinder another attempt to get a new banana

Gray bamboo lemur is not at all like varick.

These comrades are much more shy, do not jump on their shoulders and head, and bananas do not interest them at all.

In nature, bamboo lemur eats bamboo leaves, which, incidentally, are high in content ... cyanide!

These are rather small animals, they weigh 3 times less than varic, only 700-900 g.

But their faces are very cute. And they look constantly surprised by something)

One of the funniest and most active lemurs is cooking. That's who the audience’s favorite!

Well, how not to admire these black and white fluffy good-natured people?

Vari are found in a very local area of Madagascar and can hardly be seen in other national parks except Lemur Island.

Many people come here just because of these beauties.

Also do not mind trying bananas

Well, these striped comrades all know the animated film "Madagascar"!

Thanks to the cartoon, they became the most recognizable lemurs.

Katta, or cat lemur.

Katta inhabit almost a third of the island, meeting in the south and southwest of Madagascar in dry open spaces and in forests. They live from Fort Dauphin in the west and north to Monradov on the west coast. A small population of lemurs is located in the Andringitra mountains on the southeast plateau.

Katta is not for nothing called cat lemurs, they really look like cats.

On their tail are 13 black and white stripes. The long tail serves as feline lemurs for signals between relatives, as a distributor of odors, as well as to maintain balance when climbing and jumping.

Of all lemurs, cat lemurs spend the most time on earth, which is an adaptation to a partially arid environment. Ring-tailed lemurs are active at night and lead a very social lifestyle. They are found in groups of 20 to 30 individuals. A strict hierarchy reigns within groups; the leaders are mainly females. They have a pre-emptive right in the choice of food and partner. While females usually remain in the groups in which they were born, males repeatedly move into new groups. The family group covers an area of 15 to 57 acres. Males have sharp fingertips with which they scratch the bark of young trees; the glands on the paws permeate the bark with a pungent smell, marking the boundaries of the territory. Every day, lemurs go around their territory in search of food. To strangers show aggression. Cat lemurs readily sit in the sun and enjoy its warmth, spreading their arms to the sides.

Food consists mainly of fruits, in addition to their menu includes leaves, flowers, herbaceous plants, cacti and occasionally insects.

Well, on the Island of Lemurs, they are not at all afraid of tourists, they jump into their boats directly from trees hanging over the river and slowly rush to absorb bananas.

Well, this is the Lemur Indri, or, as everyone here calls it, Sifaka.

These lemurs live exclusively in Madagascar.

By the way, do you know where the name sifaki came from? It turns out that the animals called themselves. When danger approaches, they make disturbing distinct sounds, approximately like this: "shi fak!" - hence the name came from.

Sifaki is very beautiful and touching. Malagasy people are sure that the Sifaks know the unique secrets of healing: they say that they easily find special leaflets with which they help to heal any wounds with lightning speed.

Sifaki live on trees, comfortably perched on branches and in high crowns.

This is one of the most “flying” types of lemurs: they are able to fly up to 8 meters in a jump from tree to tree !!!

Well, at the end of the post there are some more photos of different types of lemurs, which we have already met not on Lemur Island, but in different parts of Madagascar, traveling from east to west.

This handsome bamboo man was seen near Antananarivo.