|
Arabic
Bengali
Chinese
English
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Malay
Polish
Portuguese
Spanish
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese|
WONDERS OF NATURE
Madagascar island. Nature miracle
The largest island in the Indian Ocean - Madagascar - is often called by geographers "the mainland in miniature". This is explained, firstly, by the extraordinary diversity of its landscapes, and secondly, by the peculiar flora and fauna that distinguishes it from nearby Africa and from other parts of the world.
The combination of tropical rain forests, tall grass savannahs and even semi-deserts, mountain ranges, plateaus and coastal plains, extinct volcanoes and coral reefs, swampy lagoons and mangroves, monsoon and trade winds determines the existence of a wide variety of landscapes on the island, and the animals and plants of Madagascar, three a quarter of which are found only here, are not at all like Africans, and if they have relatives, then usually in Indo-China and Indonesia, and even in South America. Madagascar is a mountainous country. Almost half of it is occupied by the High Plateau, which stretches across the entire island from north to south. On the east coast, where the trade winds bring moisture from the Indian Ocean, it rains, stormy and plentiful, almost every day. Due to the strong wind that accompanies them, shower jets are directed almost horizontally, and no umbrellas and canopies can save them from them. Strictly speaking, a distinction is made between the wet season and the dry season. But the latter, which lasts from May to November, differs only in that occasionally there are days without precipitation. In July, at the height of winter, the thermometer shows plus sixteen, and in February the temperature reaches thirty-four degrees. On the steep slopes of the plateau grow evergreen forests of ferns, tamarinds, palms and other tropical trees, entwined with vines and decorated with bright orchids. There are many valuable species of trees in these forests. In different types of rosewood, for example, wood is purple, pink and even black. There are also rubber plants here. And lacquer is made from the resin of the copal tree. But of all Madagascar trees, the most famous is the equal. In appearance, it looks like a banana, only the banana leaves grow directly from the ground, and the Ravenala has a real trunk, from the top of which diverge, like the spokes of a wheel, huge leaves, torn by the wind along the edges. Where the leaf cuttings are going to the trunk, there are special containers containing several liters of water. Having met a revenant, a tired traveler can always quench his thirst. No wonder it is also called the "tree of travelers". Creepers of Madagascar are unique. The pod of one of them, the entada creeper, reaches two meters in length and one and a half in width! Several of these pods, split in half, make an excellent roof for a hut. They make ropes from vines, weave baskets and mats. And from some, especially durable, they build houses, since they are the only plants on the island that termites do not touch. In the west, where the mountains do not let rain clouds through, the savannah reigns, and in some places, in the south, a hot semi-desert, since precipitation here is rare and falls only in winter. In the dry season, not a drop of moisture spills for months, and the temperature rises to forty degrees! Forests in the west are found only in river valleys, and the savannah is overgrown with brush-hard grass, and only in some places small baobabs and fan palms rise. Trees in the western part of the island shed their leaves for the winter so as not to evaporate moisture during the dry season. The fauna of Madagascar in its originality can only be compared with the Australian one. The main treasure of the fauna of the island is, of course, lemurs. These funny animals, resembling a cross between a monkey and a cat, live in forests and are nocturnal. They have large, glowing eyes and a piercing voice, reminiscent of the whimsical cry of a child. The largest of the lemurs are the indri. They are easily tamed, and the inhabitants of the island - the Malagasy - often use them for hunting instead of dogs. Another genus of lemurs with a fox head and a long tail is the maquis. They are very lively and mobile, stay in flocks and are often seen in the evenings when they jump through the trees in search of tasty fruits. The complete opposite of them is the fat loris. This clumsy and clumsy baby is slow, like an Australian koala. Also interesting is the ah-ah, or rukonozhka, an angry flat-headed lemur with huge ears and a long tail. He lives in bamboo forests, feeds on the core of bamboo and sugar cane, and also does not disdain beetles and larvae. With its long fingers, the aye-aye easily extracts the contents from the trunks of bamboo and reeds. This gourmet is very afraid of the light. As soon as the sun rises, he falls asleep with his head between his legs and wrapped around it with his long tail. The Malgashi consider lemurs to be sacred animals. There is a legend that once upon a time they were people, and then, living in the forest, overgrown with wool and turned into animals. When meeting a lemur in the forest, the hunters always politely greet him, and the animals that accidentally fell into a trap will certainly be released and released into the wild. Of the predators on the island, only the reddish-black fossa is found - the ferret cat. It is about the size of a large dog, but is small in stature, since its paws are short. Malgasi are very afraid of fossa. There are many legends and hunting stories about her bloodthirstiness and strength. It is found in Madagascar and the mongoose is the main exterminator of snakes. And in the mountain forests live shy and timid eared hedgehogs - tenrecs. These rather large (from a rabbit) animals come out of their holes only at dusk and busily begin to look for food - small insects. In winter they hibernate. The Madagascar bird world is bright and unusual. There are green parrots, bright red cardinals, blue doves and kingfishers, Sultan chickens, ibises and guinea fowls. Once upon a time, huge, similar to giant cassowaries, epiornis birds lived on the island. The growth of these giants reached five meters! They died out quite recently, since Marco Polo mentioned them in his book. And later, in the 150th century, sailors who sailed to the island heard the cries of these birds. The giant epiornis egg was XNUMX ostrich eggs in volume. The Malgash used them to make vessels that could hold eight liters of water. There are no poisonous snakes in Madagascar, and the only truly dangerous animals here are crocodiles. They literally teem with swamps and lakes of the island. And among European collectors, the amazingly beautiful butterflies of Madagascar enjoy special honor. Goliath - the largest of them - is not difficult to mistake for a bird. This is a brown butterfly with a pink belly. Surprisingly picturesque Urania, rightly considered the most beautiful butterfly in the world. Her wings shimmer, it seems, with all possible colors. The Madagascaria butterfly also strikes with a bizarre pattern on the wings. There are a lot of chameleons of various sizes on the island. Because of their unattractive appearance, the Malagasy consider them vicious and harmful creatures, although in fact they are of great benefit, exterminating flies and other annoying insects. The chameleon, in fact, is a relative of lizards, but nature has clearly deprived him of agility. Sometimes it seems that it is not blood in his veins, but wood glue - his movements are so viscous and slow. And only the tongue of the chameleon is thrown forward with lightning speed when the prey is within reach. The chameleon is known primarily for its extraordinary ability to change color to match the color of the surrounding background, which makes it completely invisible in the forest. Unusual animals and plants of Madagascar are widely known, but there is an amazing place in the west, about the nature of which even the inhabitants of the island themselves know little. This is the Bemaraha Plateau, located in the Manambolo River basin near the coast of the Mozambique Channel. Everything is amazing here: a fantastic relief, animals and plants, perhaps the last untouched corner of the wild nature of Madagascar has been preserved here. The limestone plateau of Bemaraha rises 400 meters above the Manambolo Valley. The river cut through it a grandiose gorge with white layered walls. And around the gorge there is... a stone forest! The rocky ridges - karrs, fancifully carved by karst processes - bristled with thousands of sharp peaks, between which the water made deep cracks, and turned each boulder into a sharp jagged sword. A huge rocky labyrinth is almost impassable: limestone towers and walls overgrown with thorns formed a network of natural bastions throughout the plateau, reliably protecting it from aliens. The Bemaraha region is poor in precipitation: the dry season here lasts up to eight months. And in the fissured limestones, even the moisture brought by rare rains quickly sinks into the depths, so that only plants well adapted to drought can survive here. An ebony tree, for example, turns green only during the rainy season, and the rest of the time it stands bare, saving water. And the baobab, on the contrary, accumulates water in its clumsy and powerful trunk, up to nine meters in thickness, and thanks to this it survives in the dry season. Bizarre creatures inhabit the stone forest of Bemaraha. It is an armored chameleon resembling a small dragon or dinosaur with its prickly spines on its spine and spiky bumps on its head. There is also a kind of Madagascar rat with big ears. If you do not notice the long tail, it may well be mistaken for a rabbit. And on the trees that have grown in the crevices of the rocks, the arms and poppies live, enlivening the desert rocky landscape with their funny jumps and piercing screams. Groups of remnant rocks formed by karst processes are also found in other places in the world, for example, in the Chinese region of Qingling or in Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. But there these limestone pillars and towers always have a rounded or flat top. And only here, in Madagascar, such an amazing pointed stone forest arose. The attractiveness of this corner lies also in the fact that not a single person has yet visited the depths of the plateau, and one can only guess what discoveries await scientists there. The nature of Madagascar still holds many secrets that will be revealed only to inquisitive travelers who have managed to overcome all the difficulties that the pioneers of the mountains, jungles and mysterious rocky labyrinths of this unique island face. Author: B.Wagner
▪ Kagera
Artificial leather for touch emulation
15.04.2024 Petgugu Global cat litter
15.04.2024 The attractiveness of caring men
14.04.2024
▪ Hisense 90L90H 5K 4" Laser TV ▪ Efficient infrared LED crystal from Osram ▪ Monitoring system NET-GPRS 4.4 ▪ Parade Technologies USB 3.0 Repeaters
▪ site section Electric motors. Article selection ▪ article by Alphonse de Lamartine. Famous aphorisms ▪ article How long has craniotomy been practiced? Detailed answer ▪ article Driver working in container transportation. Standard instruction on labor protection
Home page | Library | Articles | Website map | Site Reviews
www.diagram.com.ua |
We recommend interesting articles Section 
See other articles Section 
Latest news of science and technology, new electronics:
All languages of this page