New Trip Reports: Madagascar & Queensland (and a request for help IDing mouse lemurs)
Here is a list of species seen from Marie-Claude and Michel Gervais from their recent Madagascar trip. The report also includes several photos of different mouse lemurs in the hope that someone can identify them. I can’t!
Madagascar, 2016: Marie-Claude & Michel Gervais, 2 weeks & 24 species including some really nice ones like Aye Aye, Fanaloka and Voalavoanala.
Also, some of you may have missed Tim Bawden’s report last week about a quick jaunt around the Cairns area of northern Queensland (I am sorry that a glitch means some new posts were not getting broadcasted to everyone it seems).
Quick Cairns Area Jaunt, 2016: Tim Badwen, 3 days & 26 species including Striped, Herbert River and Lemuroid Ringtail Possums, Lumholtz’s Tree Kangaroo and a Diadem Leaf-nosed Bat.
Jon
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Venkat Sankar
The Madagascar trip report is really interesting–something I’d like to do someday (especially for the Aye Aye!).
Regarding the Mouse Lemurs, the best tool to tell them apart is location. For sites where multiple species occur together (Makira in particular), I doubt it’s possible to tell those apart to species level from the photos only–you really need measurements of certain anatomical features or preferably genetics to separate them. In Andasibe-Mantadia, the species is Goodman’s Mouse Lemur (Microcebus lehilahytsara). In Makira, there are two species–the smaller Mittermeier’s Mouse Lemur and the larger Microcebus macarthurii (similar to Microcebus rufus I think); it’s probably best to leave this to genus level only. The species present in Masoala and (presumably) Farankaraina hasn’t been identified to species level yet, but it’s probably Microcebus macarthurii.
In Masoala NP, the sportive and woolly lemur species are Scott’s Sportive Lemur (Lepilemur scottorum) and Masoala Woolly Lemur (Avahi mooreorum), NOT Seal’s Sportive Lemur and Eastern Woolly Lemur. Also, the bamboo lemur present here was recently identified to be Western Lesser Bamboo Lemur (Hapalemur occidentalis), NOT Hapalemur griseus. In Makira, Eastern Woolly Lemur (Avahi laniger) is the correct identification I believe.