Leaping Lemurs !

One of the delights we looked forward to in Madagascar was the wildlife, specially the Lemurs.

Not really like monkeys, and certainly not like our Australian possums, we discovered that there are more than 40 separate species of Lemur here - scary.

Fact is, we haven't seen a fraction of them.

Every village we visit, every island , every mainland beach, lemurs are somewhere there in the trees.

Maki - Maki - Maki we cry .... and so they come.  We just didn't expect the close up and personal "Lemur Ass In Our Face" kind of experience that we've been getting.  Geez - what these guys will do for just a little taste of banana.

Will they climb up my leg and into my shorts looking for the forbidden fruit ?  Sure they will.  Will they assemble en-mass on my shoulders, looking deep into my eyes, waiting patiently for me to (foolishly) pull the last piece of banana out of my pocket ?  Sure they will, then they'll stage World Championship Wrestling over my back and shoulders while they sort out who is the Alpha female.

Note to all males - the females always win here, go figure.  These beautiful brown and white creatures are all females - the males in this species are black.

At beautiful Nosy Mamoko the village was surrounded by forest. The lemurs lived in the trees close by and it didn't take much to bring them in.  Our friend Helmut on SV Lopto said they were "like cats and dogs there" and he was right.

These very cute creatures are amazing - standing on their hind legs like little fuzzy humans, they follow us around the bush. We spent hours with these creatures at several locations, and always ended up laughing.

Our private circus show also included the amazing banana leap - when this young lady worked out that I had (sneakily) passed the banana bag to Ley, she launched herself in a massive leap and thumped onto Ley's back.

Was Ley surprised ?

Click the link below to see the result !

They have very soft little hands and feet, and a musky smell that is a little like the aroma of unwashed cat.

As we've moved south down the west coast of Madagascar we've started to see some different species, with soft grey and yellow markings and a completely different appearance.

Enough said - we'll let the pictures tell the story here.