Leonard bought his camouflage outfit from a war surplus store (x2)

[stuny]

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Leaf tailed geckos are not rare, just rarely seen, their camouflage is so good, and they are endemic to Madagascar. Each time we saw one it was only after our guide outlined its shape with a pencil tip a few millimeters away from the animal’s edge. The first is in Nosy Mangabey, and the second in Ankarana National Park. Barbara tells of a location where we saw the first and also met a BBC film crew.

 

It was an exhilarating excursion and we eagerly shared news of our sightings with members of a BBC film crew, whom we’d first seen on the plane and later met at the lodge, after we returned for a late dinner. The film-makers were shooting documentary footage for a wildlife TV program for teenagers called "The Really Wild Show". It was a small crew consisting of Jerry, the producer-director; Mark, who handled all of the equipment - camera, sound and light; Nick, the charismatic on-screen talent biologist-zoologist; and his recently-wed wife, Mareya (not sure of the spelling) a primatologist from Florida who specialized in lemurs for her PhD and had spent a considerable amount of time in Madagascar. They were all good-looking, intelligent and personable, but Mareya was a blonde bombshell. She might have been a true-life example of the cliché studious scientist who takes off her glasses, unbuttons her blouse and lets down her hair to reveal the seething sexpot, except that we never saw Mareya "buttoned-up" and suspect that she’s always hot (as well as interesting and smart). Although we’d initially been told that Julian would guide us the following day, we found that the BBC gang had appropriated him. Although we regretted losing Julian, we figured it was only fair that they nab the best guide since they had a film to shoot. We ended up running into the team a few more times during our travels around the country and grew to like them even more, particularly Jerry, so we weren’t the least bit bummed about the switch.

The next morning we took a motorboat up the river and across the bay to Nosy Mangabe, a wildlife preserve since 1966. Nosy means island and this one is home to several unique species, including the Aye-Aye, an odd-looking lemur with one extra-long bony finger used to root out insects. The Aye-Aye is nocturnal so we knew we had no real chance of seeing one without camping on the island overnight. Aye-Aye have good reason to avoid humans, they’re considered bad luck by many locals and are often killed if spotted in villages.

Nosy Mangabe covers approximately 520 hectares (1 hectare = 10,000 sq. meters) with a thickly forested peak rising to about 332 meters sloping down to soft white sand beaches and clear blue-green sea. We met our guide, Ursula, on the island and headed up a steep trail into the forest. Minutes after hitting the trail we spotted a small troup of white-faced brown lemurs cavorting in the trees near the campground. The hike was not too challenging, even though uphill half the way. We stopped often to admire the copious wildlife, including extravagantly furred black-and-white ruffed lemurs high in the trees, delicate green spiders, handsome yellow-green and black mantella frogs, diminutive dwarf chameleons, crab spiders, minuscule brown frogs the size of my pinky fingernail, a muscular tree boa, day-glo green geckos and the cunning leaf-tailed gecko, which is quite large but so well disguised that only its unusual pale striped eyeball exposes it to scrutiny. Voracious insects had reduced leaves to fragile lace doilies carpeting the rocky trails, and fancifully-shaped fungi sprouted on fallen tree trunks

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[allamande]

Absolutely fantastic!

 

Ece

[pauledell]

Stuart,

 

If you hadn't told us about Leonard, I would not have found him at all. As it was I had to look lond and hard to find him. Great shots and fine narrative by Barbara.

 

Paul

[stuny]

Steve, Ece & Paul -

 

Thank you.

[StFreud]

Wow, Stuart, thats really camouflage. Thank´s for showing.

Stefan

[stuny]

Stefan -

 

Thank you, and you make me feel better about not seeing them in the wild without help.

[likalar]

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Amazing! Thanks for posting these.

 

Larry

[stuny]

Larry -

 

Thank you.