Ankarana Reserve

Ankarana Special Reserve
IUCN Category IV (Habitat/Species Management Area)
Location of Ankarana Reserve
Location Northern Madagascar
Nearest city Antsiranana (Diego Suarez)
Area 182 km²
Established 1956
Visitors approx. 6000 (in 2005)
Governing body Parcs Nationaux Madagascar - ANGAP

Ankarana Reserve is a small, partially vegetated plateau in northern Madagascar composed of 150-million-year-old middle Jurassic limestone.[1] With an average annual rainfall of about 2,000 millimetres (79 in),[1] the underlying rocks are susceptible to erosion, thereby producing caves and underground rivers—a karst topography. The rugged relief and the dense vegetation have helped protect the region from human intrusion.

The plateau slopes gently to the east, but on the west it ends abrubtly in the "Wall of Ankarana", a sheer cliff that extends 25 kilometres (16 mi) north to south, and rises as high as 280 metres (920 ft).[2] To the south, the limestone mass breaks up into separate spires known as tower karst. In the center of the plateau, seismic activity and eons of rainfall have dissolved the limestone away in deep gorges, and sometimes redeposited it in ribbons of flowstone. In places where the calcific upper layers have been completely eroded, the harder base rock has been etched into channels and ridges known as tsingy.[2]

Contents

Exploration

Beginning in the 1960s, expatriate Frenchman Jean Duflos (who married locally changed his name to Jean Radofilao) did a huge amount of exploration of the cave systems and subterranean rivers of the Massif, much of it on his own or with visiting speleologists.[3][4] A total of about 100 kilometres (62 mi) of cave passages within the massif have been mapped.[5] One of the most accessible caves, La Grotte d'Andrafiabe, alone comprises at least 8.035 kilometres (4.993 mi) of horizonatal passages.

Unique Wildlife

Expeditions that first began cataloguing the animals of Ankarana in the 1980s[6] are described in Dr Jane Wilson-Howarth's travel narrative Lemurs of the Lost World and in the scientific press.[7][8][9][10] Discoveries included unexpected sub-fossil remains of large extinct lemurs[11][12][13][14] and surviving but previously undescribed species of blind fish,[15][16] shrimps[17] and other invertebrates.[18][19] Several expedition members contributed photos to an introductory guide to Madagascar which features the Crocodile Caves.[20] The Ankarana Reserve is an important refuge for significant populations of the crowned lemur, Sanford's brown lemur and other mammal species.[8]

See also

Book

References

  1. ^ a b Rossi, G. (1974). "Morphologie et Evolution d'un karst en milieu tropical. L'Ankarana (Extreme Nord de Madagascar)". Memoires et Documents Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 15: 279–298. 
  2. ^ a b Reader's Digest (1980). Natural Wonders of the World. p. 48. ISBN 0-89577-087-3. 
  3. ^ Duflos, J. (1966). "Bilan des explorations biospeleologique pour l'annee 1965". Revue de Geographie (Universite de Madagascar) 9: 225–252. 
  4. ^ Duflos, J. (1968). "Bilan des explorations speleologique pour l'annee 1966". Revue de Geographie (Universite de Madagascar) 12: 121–129. 
  5. ^ Wilson, Jane (ed.) (1987). "The Crocodile Caves of Ankarana : Expedition to Northern Madagascar, 1986" (PDF). Cave Science : Transactions of the British Cave Research Association 14 (3): 107–119. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/AnkaranaExpedition86.pdf. 
  6. ^ Wilson, Jane M. (1987). "The Crocodile Caves of Ankarana, Madagascar". Oryx 21 (1): 43–47. 
  7. ^ Wilson, Jane M et al (1988). "Ankarana - a rediscovered nature reserve in northern Madagascar". Oryx 22 (3): 163–171. 
  8. ^ a b Wilson, J.M. et al (1989). "Ecology and Conservation of the Crowned Lemur at Ankarana, N. Madagascar with notes on Sanford's Lemur, Other Sympatrics and Subfossil Lemurs". Folia Primatologica 52: 1–26. 
  9. ^ Fowler, S.V. et al (1989). "A survey and management proposals for a tropical deciduous forest reserve at Ankarana in northern Madagascar". Biological Conservation 47: 297–313. 
  10. ^ Stewart, Paul D. (1988). "Ankarana damaged". Oryx 22 (4): 240–241. 
  11. ^ Simons, E.L. et al (1990). "Discovery of new giant subfossil lemurs in the Ankarana Mountains of Northern Madagascar". Journal of Human Evolution 19 (3): 311–319. 
  12. ^ Simons, E.L. et al (1992). "A new giant subfossil lemur, Babakotia, and the evolution of sloth lemurs". Folia Primatologica 58: 197–203. 
  13. ^ Godfrey, L.R. et al (1996). "Ankarana: window to Madagascar's past". Lemur News 2: 16–17. 
  14. ^ Wilson, J.M. et al (1995). "Past and Present Lemur Fauna at Ankarana, N. Madagascar". Primate Conservation 16: 47–52. 
  15. ^ Banister, K.E. (1994). "Glossogobius ankaranensis, a new species of blind cave goby from Madagascar". Journal of Ichthyology & Aquatic Biology 1 (3): 25–28. 
  16. ^ Wilson, Jane M. (1996). "Conservation and ecology of a new blind fish, Glossogobius ankaranensis from the Ankarana Caves, Madagascar". Oryx 30 (3): 218–221. 
  17. ^ Gurney, A.R. (1984). "Freshwater shrimp genera Caridina and Parisia (Decopoda: Caridea: Atydae) of Madagascar with descriptions of new species". Journal of Natural History 18: 567–590. 
  18. ^ Jane M. Wilson (1982). "A review of world Troglopedetini (Insecta, Collembola, Paronellidae), including an identification table and descriptions of new species" (PDF). Cave Science: Transactions of the British Cave Research Association 9 (3): 210–226. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Troglopedetini.pdf. 
  19. ^ José G. Palacios-Vargas & Jane Wilson (1990). "Troglobius coprophagus, a new genus and species of cave collembolan from Madagascar with notes on its ecology" (PDF). International Journal of Speleology 19 (1–4): 67–73. http://www.ijs.speleo.it/pdf/11.96.19_PalaciosVargas.Wilson.pdf. 
  20. ^ Bradt, Hilary (ed.) (1988). Madagascar. Aston Publications, Bourne End, UK. pp. 96. ISBN 0-946627-28-2. 
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