The Didiereaceae flourished when arid conditions enveloped much of Madagascar. Its origins lie tens of millions of years in the past, and it has no close living relatives elsewhere in the world. I don’t know how the Didiereaceae family came to be in Madagascar. Can you give us a few examples of these plants and animals you study, and how did they come to be there?įor plants, take the family Didiereaceae, with 11 living species, including the magical, silvery trees studded with spines that enchanted me long ago. In The Sloth Lemur’s Song, you explain that Madagascar is home to a vast array of plants and animals that are found nowhere else in the world. What do I love about the work? Watching animals go about their lives in the trees, feeling like the most privileged person in the world when they trusted me enough to come down to the forest floor and sit nearby also and equally, the deep friendships formed over many years collaborating with Malagasy colleagues and the village communities around the forest.

There were a few other reasons too, of course: around 95% of the plants and animals are unique to the island, and it is a hothouse for evolutionary experiments. “Oh,” she said, “come to Madagascar-no poisonous snakes, dry forests, and animals easy to see!” So I did. She asked how my summer project had gone, and I told her I would never watch primates in the wild again: poisonous snakes, rain, animals hard to see. She showed us slides of spiny forests in the south, and I fell in love with them. Returning to Cambridge University for my final year as an undergraduate, I took a class with Alison Jolly, the late primatologist and Madagascar expert. I spent the summer of 1968 watching monkeys on an island in the Panama Canal. How did you first come to study the island, and what do you love about the work?

You’ve spent over fifty years studying Madagascar.

Sloth cute