Indri spectacular

I recently visited Analamazaotra Special Reserve for a couple of days--I had a number of excuses to visit. First of all, Analamazaotra (or the French name, Perinet) is one of the most well-known parks in Madagascar. It’s probably the easiest place to observe Madagascar’s largest living lemur, the indri, a huge teddy-bear-like lemur that munches leaves all day and has the most beautiful, eerie vocalizations of any of the lemurs. I fell in love with the indri last summer when we captured a number of them in Betampona Strict Nature Reserve.

Because Analamazaotra receives so many visitors, Malagasy and foreigners alike, it’s a very interesting park to examine for issues of lemur health. I plan on coming back here next spring to capture indri with Dr. Randy Junge, the Director of Animal Health at the St. Louis Zoo, and also one of the founders of the Prosimian Biomedical Survey Project. Much of my data will contribute to this larger dataset of lemur health evaluations—over the last 6 years 450 lemurs have been included in this project. I spent a few days in the park exploring the trails and the infrastructure as a bit of reconnaissance.