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Madagascar:
The Eighth Continent (2008)
Madagascar: The Eighth Continent
(2009)
Madagascar
and the Grand Comoros
Madagascar,
lying just off Africa’s southeast coast, is like nowhere else
on earth. The world’s fourth largest island is more akin to
an eighth continent. This Gondwanaland relict was last in contact with
another landmass 160 million years ago, and it has followed a
distinctly separate evolutionary history. The small list of 270 species
may not seem long, but an amazing 120 of these are found nowhere else,
and the island holds some very special birds. Madagascar is an
essential birding destination with five endemic bird families: vangas,
ground-rollers, Cuckoo Rollers, Malagasy warblers, and mesites. The
incredible ground-rollers, in variations of sapphire-blue, rufous, and
emerald probably top the list of most-desirable endemics. Four species
are found in the eastern forests, and the variations of their
distinctive “booo” call always get your heart
racing. A fifth species, the roadrunner-like Long-tailed Ground-Roller,
scampers between baobabs, octopus and elephant's foot trees, in the
strange spiny deserts of the southwest.

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