Island of Marvels Madagascar


Island of Marvels

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BIRD SQUAWKS

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60 million years ago, on the shores of this tropical island,

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an extraordinary story began.

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The waves brought ashore an odd band of survivors...

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a few ancient creatures that had been accidentally swept across hundreds of miles of ocean

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from a distant land.

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They found themselves here, in a place unlike any other.

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Totally cut off from the rest of the world, these castaways made this island their own,

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gradually evolving into a collection of wildlife that's strange, rare and utterly unique.

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So rare that more than 80% of the species are found nowhere else on earth.

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The island was Madagascar.

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This is the story of what happens when a set of animals and plants

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are cast away on an island for millions of years.

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This is how this curious wonderland came into being.

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It had all begun millions of years earlier

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when a great slab of land broke apart to form the continents as we know them today.

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Africa went one way, and India went the other, and an orphaned chip of land was cast adrift,

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and ended up hundreds of miles from the nearest land.

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Its unusual geological history, its isolation, and its resting place in the tropics,

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were to shape Madagascar's fortunes.

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It's the world's oldest island, and it's had time to develop an astonishing range of landscapes.

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It's split in two by a spine of mountains

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that runs its entire length, and each side has its own character.

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On the western side lie huge forests populated with strange, bulging trees.

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Further south, an alien world... a parched and sandy wilderness,

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with an immense lake of salt, and gnarled and twisted spiny woodlands.

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And on the eastern side, lush jungle drenched in rain.

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It's this combination of long isolation and varied landscapes

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that's created the eccentric diversity of wildlife which makes this island so special.

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These rainforests are unlike any other rainforest on earth,

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and they are home to Madagascar's most successful inhabitants.

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They are lemurs.

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There are 80 different types, from nocturnal, mouse-sized creatures

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to this, the biggest, the size of a child. It's an indri.

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They are direct descendents of those first primitive mammals

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that had washed in from Africa by chance, and now they live nowhere else.

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PIERCING SQUEAL

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CALL IS ANSWERED BY OTHERS

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They have almost dog-like faces.

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But they are primates, related to us.

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And when you watch them, you can see it.

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They are highly social.

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At two years old this young male is an adolescent, but he's still close to his mother.

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His little sister is just six months old.

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This family group will stay together for several more years.

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Lemurs also have the grasping hands and feet of all primates.

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It's fundamental for a life in the trees...

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as well as an effective way to put a stranglehold on an older brother.

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For an indri, childhood is long.

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It's nine years before they are fully adult.

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There's plenty of time for play, and perfecting their impressive jumping skills.

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And perhaps even a spot of showing off.

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Everywhere you look, Madagascar has echoes of elsewhere...

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at first glance similar, but with different origins.

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On the rainforest floor, an animal emerges that might be mistaken for a hedgehog.

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But she's only the most distant relation. She's a tenrec,

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another of Madagascar's own inventions.

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And these are her youngsters.

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Dozens of them.

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Tenrecs have the distinction of giving birth to more babies than any other mammal on earth -

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as many as 32.

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Her babies are stripy, the better to hide in the shadows of the rainforest floor.

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Their ancestors too had washed in from Africa and, like the lemurs,

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they have diversified into many different species.

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As well as being Madagascar's equivalent of hedgehogs, tenrecs

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also take the place that moles and shrews would occupy

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anywhere else in the world.

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Madagascar's rich forests have been isolated from outside influence for so long,

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they have become an evolutionary cauldron, producing increasingly extreme forms of life.

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And none are stranger than this.

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It's a giraffe-necked weevil,

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and this is a male.

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And this is the reason for his extra long neck.

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He uses it for fighting.

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Meanwhile a female weevil, who's not quite as long-necked, is beginning an ambitious construction project.

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She's snipping through the leaf's veins, and making little creases in it.

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She also appears to referee the fight.

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She finally mates with the winner.

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Then, using her powerful legs, the female starts to fold the leaf in half.

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She then curls up the end,

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and inside the curl, she lays a single egg.

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All around the rainforest edge, females are busy rolling and curling their leaf nests.

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Each seems to have her own design.

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Only in these particular rainforests, and only on this one particular type of soft leaf,

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are conditions right for her to make her nest.

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It's an astonishingly specific behaviour.

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The expectant fathers are apparently just getting in the way.

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But they may be guarding against tiny insects that would parasitise the newly laid egg.

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The female has bitten tiny notches along the leaf's ribs,

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to form a kind of Velcro strip to help all it stick together.

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A few final folds,

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and the nest is complete.

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When she finally snips the leaf roll off,

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it falls to the forest floor to hatch.

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All that effort for just one egg.

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Madagascar has had a turbulent past.

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At its birth it was ripped from India and Africa, and the geological upheavals have continued since.

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The north of the island is speckled with slumbering volcanoes.

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On the forested slopes lives another Madagascar speciality.

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A chameleon!

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Chameleons weren't amongst those pioneering castaways.

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Theirs is a different story.

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It's thought that they evolved here in Madagascar itself.

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They are wonderfully adapted to a life in the trees.

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Their toes are fused, so their feet grip like tongs,

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and the arrangement of their legs is unusual for a reptile...

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they're beneath their body.

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This allows them to walk on branches thinner than their body.

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A male panther chameleon,

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one of the biggest.

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A second male is in his tree.

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He won't like that.

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If the intruder doesn't back down, there will be trouble.

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They are evenly matched - it's neck and neck.

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HISSING

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The territory holder wins, and the loser takes the quickest way out.

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In these isolated forests, chameleons have taken a variety of paths,

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and have diversified to an astonishing degree.

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Some are miniatures, and have the rich forest floors to themselves.

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A pygmy chameleon, the world's tiniest reptile,

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tiptoes through the leaf litter on the steep volcanic slopes.

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She's so tiny, she's scarcely bigger than an ant.

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And over here, in a forest of toadstools, a male.

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He's looking for her.

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He's even smaller than she is.

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Finding a mate in a giant world is challenging.

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And it's somewhat hazardous, when you could get run over by a millipede.

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It takes a while, but when he finally reaches her, he has a special tactic.

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He's not going to let go.

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They're not mating,

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simply riding around until the time is right.

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He barely touches her... just an occasional gentle little sway.

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They can go round like this for days.

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But at least they won't lose each other

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in their big volcanic forest.

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The heart of Madagascar still rumbles with geological activity.

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The centre of the island is a wide plateau of uplifted rock.

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Here there are still thousands of earthquakes every year.

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Over aeons of time,

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millions of these tiny earthquakes have torn a vast hole

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right in these central uplands, forming this, Madagascar's biggest lake...

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Lac Alaotra.

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Around the edges of this massive body of water, there are reed beds.

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But the vegetation is not fixed.

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It floats in great mats in water three metres deep.

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It's tricky and inaccessible to most.

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But one creature has adapted to live here, and only here.

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This is the Lac Alaotra reed lemur.

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Not only is it small enough to climb the thinnest reeds, it can also survive on a diet of tough grass.

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Unusually for a primate, it lives its whole life over water.

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And it only lives on this one lake.

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This family group has a patch of reeds to themselves.

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But they have a problem -

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to find enough to eat, you have to move from reed bed to reed bed,

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and that takes skill and practice.

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These lemurs can swim, but they prefer not to.

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So they have developed a special technique for crossing the reed beds

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without ending up in the water below.

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Their mother is an old hand.

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Even with a baby on her back, she is surefooted, and her older children are getting the hang of it.

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These lemurs are so specialised

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that they would struggle to live anywhere else.

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While Madagascar's centre was shaped by volcanic fire,

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the western side of the island has an entirely different story.

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For millions of years, this landscape was drowned, and layers of limestone formed underwater.

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When the ocean finally retreated, this is what was left.

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It's a gigantic, ancient reef.

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The seabed was pushed up, creating a great block of limestone.

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Over time, it's been carved by water into forests of giant pinnacles.

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This is the Tsingy - one of Madagascar's strangest landscapes.

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Underneath, it's riddled with caves, dissolved away by underground rivers.

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In places the limestone has collapsed, creating deep canyons,

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and in among them have grown little oases of forest, filled with oddities.

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The isolated forests are rich sources of food,

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but not easy for outsiders to reach.

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The great walls of rock make moving between them, across razor sharp blades of stone, seem impossible.

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Not so. This too is the haunt of lemurs.

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This most diverse group of primates has adapted to thrive all over the island, even here.

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These are crowned lemurs.

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They don't live up here, but they must cross the peaks

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to find fruiting trees in the forest pockets.

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Exposed to the tropical sun, it's devilishly hot.

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The group seeks shelter and a brief respite.

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The lemurs are vulnerable here,

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and need to get a move on.

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There's still a way to go before they reach the forest.

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They get to what looks like the most daunting part of the journey -

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a 30-metre drop where the limestone has fallen away to create sheer cliffs.

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But crowned lemurs are as good at rock climbing as they are at tree climbing.

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Once down, they'll find shelter from the heat and plenty to eat.

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But they must be on their guard.

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There is one danger that every lemur on the island fears,

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a hunter that climbs as well as they can -

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the fossa!

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No big African predators made it to Madagascar.

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There are no lions, no leopards, no wild dogs.

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Instead the island's top predator is a giant mongoose.

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And it eats lemurs.

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But it has more curious habits.

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It's the mating season, and this female has stationed herself 15 metres up a tree.

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She's chosen a branch that will just support her own weight, plus that of a male.

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A male approaches. If she approves of him, she'll allow him to mate.

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If she doesn't, she'll back away to a thinner branch, and he won't be able to get to her.

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She's only fertile for a few days a year,

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so setting herself up in this tall tree is a good way of advertising her availability to suitors.

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And it seems to work. This is the sixth male she's entertained today.

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The great diversity of Madagascar's wildlife is driven

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not only by the variation in landscape but also by the climate.

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The spine of mountains running the length of the island blocks the rain blowing in from the east.

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While the east coast is drenched year-round, the west lies in a rain shadow.

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The plants that have evolved here have had to adapt to an arid world.

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Some places get less than a tenth of the rain that falls in the rainforests of the east.

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This is the land of the baobab.

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These bizarrely shaped trees evolved to store water in their trunks.

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They are tough and can live to a great age.

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This baobab may be over 1,000 years old.

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In these desiccated landscapes, many plants have evolved

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these bloated trunks to store water for the driest times.

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The west of the island is dotted with these fat oddities.

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Many survive by just clinging with long roots to cracks on bare rock.

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Like most plants here, this uncarina stores water in its stem.

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And it is also economical with its flowers, putting out a few a day, over several months.

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This gives maximum opportunity for pollinators to visit.

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But this is not what the uncarina needs,

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a sunbird has become a nectar thief.

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Piercing the base of the flower it by-passes the pollen entirely.

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But the sunbird is not alone.

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Unfortunately for the shrub, it's another flower bandit.

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In a place as tough as this, a flower is well worth the effort.

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Madagascar is 1,000 miles from end to end.

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The variation from north to south is extreme, and the further south you go, the drier it gets.

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Most of the time, the rivers here are barely ankle deep.

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But there's just enough water and nutrients

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for a fringe of forest to take hold.

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And in Madagascar, where there's forest, there are lemurs.

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These are sifakas.

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They are superb acrobats, adapted to leaping from trunk to trunk.

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But where the gap is too great or in more open stretches of river bank,

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they abandon the trees and do something extraordinary.

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Their hind legs are too long to walk on all fours, so they stay upright, and gallop.

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These river forests are an oasis in this dry landscape.

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That can lead to some spectacular competition for territory.

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A female paradise flycatcher is busy building a nest.

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Both male and female have red feathers,

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but the males are particularly striking,

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with long tail plumes and bright blue rings round their eyes.

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Curiously, although all males start out with red feathers, some males turn completely white.

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No-one knows why, but it's something that's exceedingly rare in birds.

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Another Madagascar oddity.

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The red female and her white partner construct the nest between them.

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It's a delicate affair, built of leaves and grasses

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woven together with cobwebs, and it takes days of careful work.

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A red male watches nearby,

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breeding territory is particularly jealously guarded.

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The white male must see him off.

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Danger averted, the couple return to work.

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But there's worse to come...

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..a drongo!

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For some reason it sets about destroying the carefully-made nest.

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There is nothing the flycatcher couple can do about it.

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SQUAWKING

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The drongo isn't even stealing the material,

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just chasing the flycatchers from their territory.

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Competition for space is that fierce.

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The female gives up and leaves.

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Maybe she'll look for a more assertive male.

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Go far enough south and the island changes once more,

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into a landscape of scrub and spines.

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This place may go years without rain.

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Strangely, there is water here.

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This vast lake is ten-miles long, and just two-metres deep.

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But it's not what it seems.

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Greater flamingos fly 250 miles from Africa to breed here.

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But they pretty much have it to themselves,

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because this is not fresh water,

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it's a salt lake,

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gradually evaporating in the heat and drought,

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and it's hostile to life.

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This whole area has been getting drier for the last 40,000 years.

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But the plants and animals here are uniquely adapted to extreme aridity.

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Mornings are surprisingly chilly.

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A rare Verreaux's coua, found only round this lake,

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puffs itself up until it's almost spherical.

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Ring-tailed lemurs sunbathe too.

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The most adaptable of all the lemurs,

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they can cope with the dryness,

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but they can't go without water entirely.

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RUSTLING AND CHIRPING

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A giant fig, surprisingly and persistently green, wafts its thirsty roots across the ground.

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There's water here somewhere,

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but it's hidden.

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It's part of a southern river system that flows underground here,

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carving holes into the limestone like a Swiss cheese.

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But it can only be reached in a few places.

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For the ringtails, it's a life-line, and they visit every day.

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In the water, too, there are curiosities...

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strange white fish,

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found only in these caverns.

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They have been trapped in these underground rivers for millennia,

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and they too have gone their own way.

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They have not only lost all their pigment,

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they've lost their eyes too.

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They also swim upside down.

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This may be to help them feed on the surface,

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but in a dark world, it barely matters which way is up.

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Here in the far south of the island, the extreme conditions make this a land of rare specialists.

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There is wildlife that's found nowhere else in Madagascar.

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A little nocturnal mammal, whistling in the dark.

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It's Grandidier's vontsira, one of the world's rarest carnivores.

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They survive on a diet of almost nothing but insects.

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As the climate here dried, only the toughest and most adaptable stayed on.

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Grandidier's vontsira, able to survive on such a diet, was able to hang on.

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THEY SQUEAL

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They're sociable, and playful.

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But their lives remain largely a mystery.

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The intense dryness of this end of the island has demanded some ingenious behaviour.

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In this desert scrubland, desiccation is just as problematic for a spider as for a mammal.

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An empty snail shell would make a perfect refuge from the heat.

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But it's not safe lying on sand.

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So this spider begins an astonishing process.

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It attaches silk to the shell, and starts to haul it into a bush.

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This is the first time this has been filmed,

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and may be the first time it's even been observed in the wild.

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Each new strand is shorter than the last,

0:44:290:44:31

so the shell gradually gets pulled up.

0:44:310:44:35

Technique is key.

0:44:350:44:36

It's important that the shell is secured from several angles,

0:44:360:44:40

for maximum stability.

0:44:400:44:42

This spider has got it wrong.

0:44:490:44:51

And when the wind springs up, it totally loses control.

0:44:510:44:55

This one shows how it should be done.

0:45:170:45:19

This is the farthest southerly point of Madagascar.

0:46:040:46:09

Beyond this is nothing until you reach Antarctica.

0:46:090:46:14

This is the oldest, most arid and most remote landscape of all.

0:46:240:46:31

The spiny trees are dwarves, bent by the wind.

0:46:310:46:35

And on these windswept cliffs there are radiated tortoises,

0:46:370:46:41

one of the world's most beautiful species.

0:46:410:46:44

They're only found in these southern scrublands.

0:46:440:46:47

A male sets off in pursuit of a female.

0:46:580:47:01

He'd be able to mate with her if only he can get her to stand still.

0:47:270:47:31

He uses the front of his shell to lift her back legs off the ground.

0:47:350:47:40

She seems less than willing.

0:47:400:47:42

It's a slow process, but radiated tortoises don't do anything very quickly.

0:47:430:47:51

They don't become parents until the age of 20, and they may live to be 130.

0:47:510:47:57

One legendary individual was claimed to be 188,

0:47:570:48:03

which would make him the longest-living animal on earth.

0:48:030:48:07

It's also one of the most endangered.

0:48:090:48:13

It's hunted, and its unique spiny habitat is being destroyed, bit by bit, cut down for firewood.

0:48:130:48:20

It was once abundant on Madagascar.

0:48:290:48:32

Now it could well be extinct in the wild within the next 20 years.

0:48:320:48:38

On this same windswept beach lie thousands of fragments of egg shells.

0:48:460:48:53

These are the ancient nest sites of an astonishing creature...

0:48:530:48:57

the biggest bird that ever lived.

0:48:570:48:59

The elephant bird stood more than three meters tall,

0:48:590:49:04

and a thousand years ago it would have roamed these spiny scrublands.

0:49:040:49:10

In the warm sand it laid its huge eggs... bigger than dinosaur eggs.

0:49:120:49:18

This astonishing bird only lived in Madagascar, and it was extraordinarily successful.

0:49:180:49:25

But then, it totally disappeared.

0:49:270:49:30

These egg fragments and bits of bone are all that remains to show it was here at all.

0:49:300:49:37

Two thousand years ago, humans first came to Madagascar,

0:49:410:49:45

and it seems the elephant bird started to vanish soon after.

0:49:450:49:49

It's a story that's continued.

0:49:490:49:52

Many of Madagascar's wild landscapes and species are under threat of disappearing forever,

0:49:520:49:58

just as we are beginning to discover and understand the extraordinary diversity of life here.

0:49:580:50:04

It's only during the last few decades that we've really started to appreciate this curious land.

0:50:070:50:14

Let's hope it's not too late.

0:50:140:50:17

Much of Madagascar's wildlife is secretive, and a challenge to find, let alone film.

0:50:340:50:42

The team were keen to tell the story of a little lemur that only lives on this one remote lake.

0:50:420:50:49

There are very few of them left, because they've long been hunted,

0:50:490:50:52

and the reed beds where they live are being cut down.

0:50:520:50:55

But in one village on Lac Alaotra, the local people have made strenuous

0:50:580:51:02

efforts to save the reed lemurs, and they knew where they might be found.

0:51:020:51:07

Field assistant Jonathan Fiely and cameraman Gavin Thurston set out with local

0:51:070:51:12

fisherman and wildlife guide Ndrina Rajohonson, who has spent many months following the lemurs.

0:51:120:51:20

The team wanted to film its specialised way of moving through these floating beds of reeds.

0:51:220:51:27

Easy for the lemurs...

0:51:270:51:28

not so easy for a film crew.

0:51:280:51:31

In fact, in the tangled reed beds, it seemed almost impossible even to see them at all.

0:51:350:51:42

They are so nimble, they simply melt away into the reeds.

0:51:420:51:46

The team negotiated the channels in an attempt to track them down.

0:51:490:51:55

The trouble was, there's no dry land here.

0:52:010:52:03

Gavin would have to try and film them from a canoe.

0:52:030:52:06

Following a cyclone, the lake was deep and the water particularly choppy.

0:52:060:52:11

We're going to need a bigger boat!

0:52:180:52:21

It's way too rocky, and the boat's going all over the shop.

0:52:210:52:25

We've got a few toys up our sleeves... we've got a big stick, to help stabilise the canoe.

0:52:250:52:31

This must look like sort of Amateurville,

0:52:310:52:34

and it is quite precarious... you know, we've got sort of £40,000-worth

0:52:340:52:38

of camera balanced in a rocky canoe,

0:52:380:52:40

which looks like we've just hired it from the local boating lake.

0:52:400:52:44

But I'm feeling positive.

0:52:440:52:47

It was back to base for Plan B.

0:52:470:52:51

Gavin and Ndrina decided to build a platform. But it would have to be very carefully designed.

0:52:510:52:58

It turned into quite an undertaking.

0:52:580:53:00

We're trying to adapt this construction,

0:53:140:53:17

so that when we get out to the reeds we don't need to use any nails at all.

0:53:170:53:21

I'm just worried that if they start banging the nails

0:53:210:53:23

it's going to drive these animals even deeper into the reeds,

0:53:230:53:26

so we're making this precarious 4-metre high platform above the water without any nails.

0:53:260:53:31

At dawn the next day, the platforms were loaded up to be taken out to the reed beds.

0:53:370:53:43

Getting the canoes through the tangled vegetation was hard enough.

0:53:480:53:52

Moving through with the platforms was a different matter.

0:53:520:53:57

And the whole operation had to be completed as quietly as possible, for fear of scaring the lemurs.

0:54:020:54:08

One false move and the whole team would end up in the water.

0:54:110:54:15

At last, a clear and stable view through the reed bed.

0:54:230:54:27

Gavin got himself settled and started filming.

0:54:350:54:38

But it wasn't easy.

0:54:420:54:43

The very thing he wanted to film, the lemurs on the move,

0:54:430:54:46

was limited by the fact that when they moved off, Gavin could only wait for them to return.

0:54:460:54:52

It is quite frustrating really...

0:54:520:54:55

because it doesn't matter how much experience you've got, with something like this...

0:54:550:55:00

filming from the boat was too wobbly, and working off the platform you're

0:55:000:55:04

literally stuck in one place in the hope that they'll come within sight.

0:55:040:55:07

I think we'll get it, in-between that and this sort of cyclonic weather.

0:55:070:55:10

THUNDERCLAP

0:55:100:55:12

Just as they'd got set up, a storm was rolling in.

0:55:130:55:16

The last place you want to be is on a lake, in a canoe, in a thunderstorm,

0:55:160:55:21

so they paddled back as quickly as they could, and then could only wait for the storm to pass.

0:55:210:55:28

That took three days.

0:55:280:55:30

Finally, it dawned clear and calm.

0:55:340:55:39

Things were looking more promising.

0:55:420:55:44

(Gavin's just inside the reed-bed right over there.

0:55:520:55:55

(We set him up about 5.20 this morning.)

0:55:550:55:59

The team were in luck. The lemurs were feeding right next to where Gavin was stationed.

0:55:590:56:05

With Ndrina's careful guidance, they were in the right place at the right time.

0:56:050:56:10

It might look a bit Heath-Robinson, but at last Gavin was getting shots of one of the world's rarest lemurs,

0:56:100:56:17

moving and feeding in the reeds, and for the first time, a mother and her baby.

0:56:170:56:22

But even after ten days, they were still unpredictable.

0:56:270:56:33

(It's 7 o'clock in the morning...

0:56:340:56:36

(and they've gone to sleep!

0:56:360:56:39

(They're just tucked down in here asleep.)

0:56:390:56:42

I've really quite grown to like them...

0:56:460:56:48

it's just quite sad that they are critically endangered.

0:56:480:56:51

They only live in the reeds around this one lake, and there's very few small

0:56:510:56:55

areas of reeds left, and if those reeds do disappear, then the lemurs are going to disappear with them.

0:56:550:57:01

And I think it would be really sad to lose such a cute cuddly little lemur like that.

0:57:010:57:06

These little lemurs have been pushed to the brink of extinction

0:57:060:57:09

by hunting, and the gradual destruction of their reed beds.

0:57:090:57:13

But the quiet determination of people like Ndrina mean that local attitudes are beginning to change.

0:57:130:57:19

Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world.

0:57:420:57:45

It's as much as most people can do to earn a basic living from the land.

0:57:450:57:50

And yet it may be the passion and involvement of local people

0:57:500:57:54

that is key to preserving its unique, and increasingly fragile, wild treasures.

0:57:540:58:00

In the next episode we travel into Madagascar's most luxuriant landscape.

0:58:070:58:13

Between the wild peaks of the eastern mountains and the tropical shore

0:58:130:58:17

lies a magical world of rainforest where nature has run riot.

0:58:170:58:20

It's the jewel in Madagascar's crown.

0:58:200:58:25

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:490:58:51

E-mail [email protected]

0:58:510:58:53

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