Fauna and Flora

Called “the Red Island” due to its laterite soil, Madagascar broke away from the African continent more than 120 million years ago. Thanks to this split, the Big Island now benefits from a unique and priceless natural heritage, protected today in a variety of national parks, integral natural reserves and special reserves.

Madagascar, a really exotic garden, will surprise you with the diversity and the wealth of its flora such as different species of orchids, baobabs, the traveller’s tree also called Ravinala, aloe, small baobabs also called pachypodiums,  ….among others. Well-known in the world for their therapeutic or cosmetic benefits, these plants are in demand all over the world.

Among the endemic fauna, Madagascar is a shelter to the 15-cm-large comet butterfly, beautiful but rare species; the phaeton, a red-tailed bird found in the Nosy Ve island, in the southern part of Tuléar; the Fossa, one of the very few carnivores and nocturnal mammals of the island; lemurs, from the smallest to the biggest ones; not to forget the different kinds of amphibians and reptiles.

In Madagascar’s coral water, we can also find a wide range of marine fauna. From July to October, the East coast of the island is an appreciated stop for the humped whales which come there to reproduce and to give birth.