To the spiny forest

23^rd October

Every day with two new primates on my list is a good day. Today was long. Today was hot. Today was exhausting. But today was good. Early this morning we reached Zombitse, a deciduous forest national park marooned in a horizonless landscape of anthropogenic grasslands. We missed our avian target here, Appert’s tetraka which may be found nowhere else, but saw our mammalian target, a snoozing Hubbard’s sportive lemur, which likewise lives nowhere else. (For the taxonomically minded, however, it’s worth knowing that recent genetic research indicates that, unlike the Microcebus mouse lemurs which are bona fide species, the many newly described Lepilemur sportive lemurs are probably regional forms of very few species. The same, incidentally, is true of the Avahi woolly lemurs of which we saw the form currently known as Peyrieras’ in Ranomafana.)

Our second new primate was grey-brown mouse lemur. These spiny forest favourites were dozing at the arboretum outside Tulear: hunkering in the hollow of a snapped tree, curled in a fluffy ball in a spiky Euphorbia, and nestling in the folded leaf of a Bismarckia palm. A green-capped coua trotted through the sandy undergrowth and in the dust sat a Madagascar nightjar, protecting her eggs from the shocking heat of the afternoon.

As we bumped along the unmade road to Ifaty a Kittlitz’s plover stood by a brackish pool, two curlew sandpipers (last seen by my eyes at Cley) probed the seaside mud, and a pair of Madagascar buttonquail trundled across the road, rounding their backs, lowering their heads, and hoping that a bus full of naturalists would not spot them.

New this morning in Zombitse

	Mammals
98	Hubbard’s sportive lemur	Lepilemur hubbardorum
	Birds
918	Madagascar green pigeon	Treron australis
919	crested coua	Coua cristata
920	alpine swift	Apus melba
921	white-browed owl	Ninox superciliaris
922	Frances’s sparrowhawk	Accipiter francesiae
923	Coquerel’s coua	Coua coquereli
924	rufous vanga	Schetba rufa
925	Madagascar cuckoo-hawk	Aviceda madagascariensis
	Reptiles
39	Standing’s day gecko	Phelsuma standingi
40	three-eyed lizard	Chalerodon madagascariensis

New this afternoon in the Tulear arboretum and in marshes near Ifaty

	Mammals
99	grey-brown mouse lemur	Microcebus griseorufus
	Birds
926	Sakalava weaver	Ploceus sakalava
927	Madagascar nightjar	Caprimulgus madagascariensis
928	green-capped coua	Coua olivaceiceps
929	Kittlitz’s plover	Charadrius pecuarius
930	Madagascar buttonquail	Turnix nigricollis
	Reptiles
41		Tracheloptychus petersi
42	spiny-backed chameleon	Furcifer verrucosus
43		Trachylepis aureopunctata

2012 Totals

Mammals: 99

Birds: 930

Reptiles: 43

Amphibians: 15

Fish: 11