Tuesday 21 August 2012

Madagascar Gets Biggest Lemur Park


Good news for lemurs: Officials in Madagascar have created the island's biggest protected wildlife park. Named Makira Natural Park, the area is larger than the state of than the state of Rhode Island, and it provides a habitat for the highest diversity of lemurs on the planet, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced.

The park stretches over 1,438 square miles (372,470 hectares) of rainforest in northeastern Madagascar and contains 20 of the island’s 103 lemur species, including the red-ruffed lemur and the silky sifaka, WCS officials said. Lemurs, found only in Madagascar, were recently named the most endangered group of vertebrates on Earth. Along with lorises and bushbabies, lemurs belong to a group called prosimian primates, defined as all primates that are neither monkeys nor apes.

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