Welcome to Madagascar!

Imagine a place where black and white sifakas bounce through trees covered with thorns; a place where chameleons look forward and backward at the same time, waiting to catch insects with long, sticky pink tongues; a place so unique some scientists have called it a continent. This place sits only a few hundred miles off the shores of Southeast Africa. It is one of the most fascinating islands on Earth, Madagascar.

Most of the animals and plants on Madagascar exist nowhere else. Here, you'll find a dozen species of baobab trees, at least sixty-six kinds of chameleons, and more than twenty different varieties of long-tailed lemurs.

Why are there so many unique organisms on Madagascar? How did they get there? Why is this little patch of land in the Indian Ocean so important to conservationists?

You'll discover the answers to these questions and more as we journey halfway way around the world and investigate one of the planet's most distinctive and threatened wild places, Madagascar.

WHY AM I HERE?

In this module you will play the role of a scientist. You will conduct research to learn how the unique geological and biological history of Madagascar has shaped its diversity, and to inform decisions shaping its future.

The Wildlife Conservation Society has been working in Madagascar for well over a decade. We are training local scientists, working with rural communities to develop ways of making a living that don’t damage the environment, helping the government to set up and monitor protected areas to ensure the survival of humpback whales, radiated tortoises, and a variety of lemurs. For more information on this work, visit our website.

The Wildlife Conservation Society's home base at the Bronx Zoo has just opened an outstanding new exhibit – Madagascar! Here, you can marvel at huge Nile crocodiles, thrill to the acrobatics of sifakas, and stand inside a tree teeming with 10,000 hissing cockroaches. For more information, visit the Bronx Zoo's Madagascar! website.