Madagascar – BBC Earth – Madagascar (2011)

Directed by: Sally Thomson | 205 minutes | documentary | Voice over: David Attenborough

A small, endearing and unusual looking ape-like creature, with an even smaller baby animal on its back, deftly climbs to the top of a reed and uses the object as a natural pole to jump to another island without getting your feet wet. The animal in question is an extremely rare bamboo lemur and is only found in the papyrus and reed areas around Lake Alaotroa, a large pool of water in the east of the African island of Madagascar. The rare and special primate species tells the story of the well-known island off the southeast coast of Africa in many ways. Because Madagascar has been separated from the neighboring continents of Africa and Asia for millions of years, a colorful palette of unique animal species, not found anywhere else, has developed on the island. Madagascar is also a richly varied patchwork climatologically and scenically. For example, the heavy rainfall, caused by clouds that form over the Indian Ocean, ensures that the eastern side of the island is richly covered with lush tropical rainforests. However, the south and west are very dry for most of the year and often dotted with arid thorn forests, ancient baobabs or dry plains. The center of the island is intersected by imposing ridges, the product of a turbulent volcanic and seismic past. This wide variety of landscapes and climatic quirks has meant that Madagascar is teeming with unique and extremely specialized animal and plant species. About four out of every five species found on the island are endemic, meaning they cannot be found anywhere else on Earth (in the wild). It is not for nothing that many ecologists call Madagascar the eighth continent and conservation organization Conservation International has officially designated the island as one of the most important global biodiversity hotspots. Enough material for a wonderful documentary series. And, as always, you can leave the documentation of extraordinary animal behavior and beautiful natural phenomena to the tried and tested film crews at the BBC. They have succeeded with verve in capturing a large part of the colorful flora and fauna of the fourth largest island in the world in very sharp detail in three parts of more than fifty minutes.

An important role is obviously reserved for the lemurs, exceptional prosimians that only occur in Madagascar and the Comoros (brown lemur) and have developed in isolation into a species-rich and very diverse primate family. The well-known ring-tailed lemurs, with their beautiful and distinctive tails, get the most screen time, but also species such as the brown lemur, the white-headed lemur, the strange-looking ghostly ayesome, the acrobatic sifakas, the indri (the largest member of the lemurs order) and the breathtakingly beautiful red ruff come by. The chameleons, the second animal group to which Madagascar owes much of its fame, are also frequently seen in all their eye-catching colours. The large (panther chameleon) and the small members of this reptile family are both covered, as is a species of chameleon that has the shortest life cycle of all known vertebrates. Especially the intimate way in which an amorous encounter between two minuscule dwarf chameleons (which are not much bigger than an oversized ant) ​​is filmed deserves a lot of appreciation and admiration. In addition to these somewhat more famous animals, a whole procession of separate life forms also pass before the eyes of the viewers. Think, for example, of color-changing frogs, wasps that feed on tadpoles, fish that cleave upside down the water, bizarre beetles and female parrots that deliberately keep multiple lovers to ensure that the hungry mouths of their chicks even in scarce times. be filled continuously. The beautiful images are supported by the warm and expert commentary of David Attenborough, the doyen of British wildlife film. Complementing the three-part series, the box set also includes the documentary ‘Attenborough’s Giant Egg’, a documentary in which the renowned BBC celebrity searches for the origin of a gigantic egg of an extinct bird that he used in his younger years in Madagascar. stumbled upon.

‘Madagascar’ is an intimate, expertly produced and extremely colorful portrait of a beautiful, but also very vulnerable island. Population growth, the development of unsustainable economic activities, poaching and forest clearing threaten many of the ecosystems and natural treasures that have produced millions of years of evolution. And it is precisely the high degree of specialisation, which is so characteristic of countless species, that makes Madagasse’s animals and plants so vulnerable. Many animals, such as the silky sifakas and ray tortoises, are found in very modest numbers and only in a few places. Thus, the loss of a single habitat can very easily lead to the extinction of multiple species. With that thought in mind, ‘Madagascar’ is not only a beautifully designed documentary, it is also a powerful plea for the preservation of an enormously rich testing ground of life.