Chameleons!

We headed east out of “Tana”, the capital. After several hours bumping and winding along terrible roads, we arrived at the Peryeras Reptile Reserve. Before seeing the reptiles, we got to say hello to some friendly lemurs - a Brown…

… and (new to us) a Coquerel’s Sifaka -

I just loved their coloration -

We headed to the enclosure with numerous chameleons that this reserve was breeding and releasing into the wild. We started with a female Parson’s chameleon, which is the world’s largest chameleon species …

… and also saw a male Parson’s (complete with horns) -

We didn’t see any other Globifers (Globe-horned chameleon) in the large enclosure bsides this neat one -

Next up was an Elephant-eared chameleon…

… followed by a Green-eared one -

The colors on this one (Parson’s, I think) are incredible…

… and watching it walk on the ground (rather than holding a tree branch) was very interesting.

This pair of Parson’s chameleons posed very nicely together -

the female is in the foreground

Now I know this post is entitled “Chameleons”, but I have so many more pictures of cool animals that I’m going to branch out a bit. One of the coolest (especially at camouflage) is a Leaf-tailed Gecko. Here’s one that’s relatively easy to spot…

The next one is more challenging. Both of these were found in the wild during a forest walk in the Mitsinjo National Park -

Hints - it is in the same orientation as the previous one; the toes on its left front foot are slightly elevated off the trunk

On this same forest walk we saw two more new lemur species. This is a Golden (Diadem) Lemur…

… and the other is an Indri, one of the largest lemurs -

They look like very intense teddy-bears…

… and their vocalizations are spectacular. The next video has a little bit of some Indri jumping around, but the main reason I included this, was so you could hear the “conversation” that the family was having right above us. Two notes - 1) as usual, to help you see the video, click the link on the bottom of the email to open it in your browser; and 2) have your volume turned down on your speakers, or you’ll get blasted.

One last chameleon to close out this post — but first a little story - We walked up and down hills, through a village, and along a river for 45 minutes to get to the one little place where this species is found in all of Madagascar. The guide had been scouring the bushes and trees, without spotting it, and had even turned around to go back towards our car, when he found the little one! A Pinocchio Chameleon. It’s only about 5 inches long, including the tail.

Bye!