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Madagascar in a nutshell: eight easy-going questions about the essentials of this remarkable island. No expert knowledge needed, so everyone can join in, from nine to ninety.
Island hopper 0–3 · Rainforest rambler 4–6 · Honorary Malagasy 7–8
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At its narrowest, the stretch of sea between Madagascar and Mozambique, called the Mozambique Channel, is about 420 km wide. Madagascar is the fourth-biggest island in the world, after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo.
Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Quarty~commonswiki assumed (based on copyri, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Vanilla comes from the long pods of an orchid, and almost all of it is pollinated by hand, one flower at a time. The quick way of doing this was invented in 1841 by Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old boy on the nearby island of Réunion, and growers still use his method today.
Photo: Malcolm Manners from Lakeland FL, USA, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
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Madagascar's chameleons range from the colourful panther chameleon to the nano-chameleon, which could sit on a fingertip and may be the smallest reptile in the world. Many chameleons can change colour, and they catch insects by shooting out a long, sticky tongue.
Photo: Charles J. Sharp, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Tomato frogs live in the north-east of Madagascar and breed in shallow pools and swamps. Their bright colour warns hungry animals that they are not good to eat, and if a snake does grab one, the frog oozes a sticky white substance from its skin that works like glue.
Photo: Franco Andreone - [:it:Wikipedia:Autorizzazioni_ottenute/Franco_Andreone see aut, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.
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Rice is the heart of Malagasy cooking and is served with a side dish called laoka, such as a stew or greens. It was probably brought to the island by early settlers who sailed all the way from Borneo, in South-East Asia, in outrigger canoes.
Photo: Jean-Louis Vandevivère, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
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Elephant birds laid the biggest eggs known from any bird, and two whole ones have even turned up in sand dunes in faraway Western Australia. Surprisingly, their closest living relative is not the ostrich but the little kiwi of New Zealand.
Photo: Monnier, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Madagascar split away from India about 88 million years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, so its plants and animals developed on their own for an incredibly long time. That is also why the island has no native monkeys at all, even though monkeys live on the African mainland nearby.
Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Charlescantin assumed (based on copyright c, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.
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King Julien is a ring-tailed lemur, and ring-tailed lemurs live in the wild only on Madagascar. Real ring-tailed lemurs sunbathe in the morning, sitting up with their white bellies turned to the sun, and rival males hold 'stink fights', waving their smelly tails at each other.
Photo: Charles J. Sharp, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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