geographical location
Located about 402 km off the southeast coast of Africa, Madagascar is one of the most geographically diverse places on Earth. Its terrain is complex, including beautiful coastal beaches, tranquil grasslands, meandering rivers, mountainous peaks and dry deserts.
Madagascar has a tropical climate with a rainy season lasting from December to April and a dry season from May to November. Many unique species of flora and fauna are willing to choose such a tropical paradise as their home. In fact, Madagascar is also home to some of the world's most unique and endangered flora and fauna, and lemurs are one of these creatures.
Lemurs are primates, and primates include monkeys, apes, and humans. Lemurs are nocturnal insectivores with small bodies, long noses and large eyes. Today, there are 88 species of lemurs on Earth, all of which live in Madagascar. In fact, lemurs are able to thrive in Madagascar, mainly because there are no other primates on the island.
Although lemurs are primates, they differ from other primates. Basically, primates can be divided into two suborders: apes and proto-monkeys. Monkeys, apes, and humans are ape-like; lemurs are proto-monkeys.
Like other primates, the prototypical suborder relies on moist noses and a strong sense of smell to find food and identify individuals within their social groups. Usually apes comb their hair with their fingers, while lemurs use their teeth as combs. Great apes are omnivores that usually do not actively hunt and rely mainly on vegetation and insects as a food source. Proto-monkeys like lemurs are insectivores and herbivores. In addition, proto-monkey societies are matrilineal societies, with females tending to get the best food, defend the group and choose their own mates.
Proto-monkey evolution predates ape-like, with the first proto-monkey fossils dating back 55 million years, the first monkey fossils dating back 45 million years, and the first ape fossils dating back 35 million years. Before the advent of great apes, proto-monkeys were very common, and proto-monkey fossils have been found around the world, including in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.
But when larger, more dominant, adaptive, and intelligent apes emerge, prototypus monkeys like lemurs are hunted. In a fight for food with other primates, the proto-monkeys lost. And they began to die out all over the world, including everywhere outside of Madagascar.
How lemurs evolved in Madagascar
160 million years ago, Madagascar was connected to the African continent. Some believe that when Madagascar separated from the African continent, lemurs may have lived in Madagascar. But a more reasonable theory is that because Madagascar was only a few hundred kilometers away from Africa before lemurs evolved, these primates entered Madagascar from Africa by floating on large patches of vegetation.
Lemurs then settled on the island and began to be reproductively isolated from the threat of other primates. In fact, the only reason they can still survive there today is because Madagascar is isolated.
Primates like monkeys and apes have never reached Madagascar. As a result, lemurs that floated to the island thrived, competing for food between their races and eventually evolving into many different species. The lemurs who did not flee to the island suffered a very different fate.
When African lemurs were unable to compete with other primates for food, they went extinct. The same thing has happened elsewhere in the world, for example, fossils of 30-million-year-old pygmy lemurs have been found in central Pakistan, but the animal no longer exists in that area today.
However, when the first human settlers came to the island from Malaysia and Indonesia about 2,000 years ago, this history of isolation from other primates came to an end. The arrival of humans caused the worst damage to the lemur population. Larger lemur species suffer the most.
Humans saw lemurs, similar in size to gorillas, as a threat and began hunting them. Today, lemurs live in Madagascar are small, weighing only 6.8 to 9 kilograms. But the fossil record suggests that the largest extinct lemur species weigh between 350 and 158 to 199 kilograms. By the time Europeans arrived in Madagascar in the 1500s, 15 species of lemurs had gone extinct.
Today, lemurs are an endangered species, and humans have not only hunted lemur populations, but also destroyed their habitats by cutting down forests.
Current status of madagascar lemurs
Lemurs continue to live in almost all ecosystems and terrains of Madagascar, ranging in size from 25 g pygmy mouse lemurs to 6 to 9 kg large lemurs (Indri indri).
According to incomplete statistics, there are still 88 species of lemurs living in Madagascar. The researchers believe that although lemurs are also near the Comoros islands, they should have been introduced into the area by humans from the island of Madagascar.
Despite the ecological importance of Madagascar, humans are constantly destroying primate habitats. 80% of the island's forest area has been destroyed and is mainly used by humans for logging or crop cultivation.
Madagascar, on the other hand, has a low economic development, with a per capita income of only $200 and a huge population of more than 14 million people living there, so human survival exceeds animal protection. However, local animal conservation has begun to be taken seriously, and efforts are being made to protect lemurs and the island's biodiversity.
Madagascar's diverse geography has contributed to the diversity of life forms living there and is one of the most unique geographies in the world. Due to its beautiful landscapes and diverse flora and fauna, ecotourism has become an increasingly popular industry in Madagascar. This could be the key to protecting this endangered primate.
Researchers can learn a lot about the evolution of primates from lemurs. Lemurs are not as well related to humans as monkeys and apes, and they are closer to primates that existed tens of millions of years ago. Even so, by studying lemurs, researchers were able to learn more about the evolutionary processes of humans.