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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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  • Ankarana National Park in north-west Madagascar is a spectacular eroded limestone fortress of sharp ridges, interspersed with patches of dense tropical rainforest, deciduous forest, gorges, deep caves and underground rivers. About 100 kilometres of cave passages have been mapped within the massif. It is a small, partially vegetated plateau composed of 150-million-year-old middle Jurassic limestone, with an average annual rainfall of about 2,000 mm that has led to the erosion that has created the classic “karst” topography, or locally known as “tsingy”.<br />
Ankarana contains one of the highest densities of primates of any forest in the world. Its dense forests supports large populations of crowned lemurs and Sanford’s brown lemurs, in addition to Perrier’s sifaka, northern sportive lemurs, brown mouse lemurs, fork-marked lemurs, eastern wooly lemurs, western lesser bamboo lemurs and fat-tailed dwarf lemurs, and also ring-tailed mongoose, fossa, tenrecs and Madagascar striped civet. There are almost 100 bird species, 50 reptile, including some endemic and threatened snakes and geckos, and 10 species of frogs. Inside the huge labyrinth of caves there are 14 species of bats, along with local endemic blind shrimps and the world’s only cave-living crocodiles.<br />
More than 350 plant species grow in the park; the luxuriant forests around the gorges are always green and are the richest in numbers of species.
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  • Madagascar day gecko  (Phelsuma madagascariensis madagascariensis) is a diurnal subspecies of geckos. It lives on the eastern coast of Madagascar and typically inhabits rainforests and dwells on trees. The Madagascar day gecko feeds on insects and nectar. This lizard is one of the largest living day geckos. It can reach a total length of about 22 cm (8.7 in). The body color is light green or bluish green. The skin between the scales often has a light color. A rust-coloured stripe extends from the nostril to behind the eye. On the back there are brownish or red-brick coloured dots which may form a thin line along the mid back. These geckos do not have eyelids, and they have flattened toe pads.
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  • It is a deciduous shrub growing to 4-metre (13 ft) tall with bright green shoots with an angular cross-section. The flowers are small bell-shaped yellow-white to pinkish-white with pink. The fruit is an edible red to orange berry. It can produce prodigious quantities of fruit when it gets enough sun. It grows as an understory plant, thriving on decaying woody material in the soil. Often you’ll see them growing out of the top of rotting stumps, feeding on the remnants of old timber. The bushes will tolerate rather deep shade, but under those conditions they tend to be somewhat spindly and don’t produce much fruit. This was my favourite berry to make into a sauce to have with my multi-grain pancakes nearly every morning to fuel me up for a long hard day kayaking with the whales. It has a very distinctive tart taste that makes excellent jam and jelly. They weren't as widely available as blueberries so I always tried to remember where the best patches were located, and this was the best patch near one of my regular campsites at Point Hayes in Chatham Strait. Indigenous peoples of North America found the plant and its fruit very useful.The bright red, acidic berries were used extensively for food throughout the year. Fresh berries were eaten in large quantities, or used for fish bait because of the slight resemblance to salmon eggs. Berries were also dried for later use. Dried berries were stewed and made into sauces, or mixed with salmon roe and oil to eat at winter feasts.
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