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The Madagascar People's Armed Forces is the national military of Madagascar. The IISS detailed the armed forces in 2012 as including an Army of 12,500+, a Navy of 500, and a 500-strong Air Force. An alternate report describes the People's Armed Forces as consisting of the Intervention Force, Development Force, and Aeronaval Force, which is the navy and air force.
Lavanify is a mammalian genus from the late Cretaceous of Madagascar. The only species, L. miolaka, is known from two isolated teeth, one of which is damaged. The teeth were collected in 1995–1996 and described in 1997. The animal is classified as a member of Gondwanatheria, an enigmatic extinct group with unclear phylogenetic relationships, and within Gondwanatheria as a member of the family Sudamericidae. Lavanify is most closely related to the Indian Bharattherium; the South American Sudamerica and Gondwanatherium are more distantly related. Gondwanatheres probably ate hard plant material.
Nursery web spiders (Pisauridae) is a family of araneomorph spiders first described by Eugène Simon in 1890. They resemble wolf spiders (Lycosidae) except for several key differences. Wolf spiders have two very prominent eyes in addition to the other six, while a nursery web spider's eyes are all about the same size. Additionally, female nursery web spiders carry their egg sacs with their jaws and pedipalps instead of attaching them to their spinnerets as wolf spiders do. When the eggs are about to hatch, a female spider builds a nursery "tent", places her egg sac inside, and stands guard outside, hence the family's common name. Like the wolf spiders, however, the nursery web spiders are roaming hunters that don't use webs for catching prey. They have a wide variety of prey, and larger species may prey upon vertebrates, particularly amphibians and fish.
Cophylinae is a subfamily of microhylid frogs endemic to Madagascar. It has over 100 species in eight genera. Members of this subfamily range from minute to fairly large, and they are highly ecologically diverse. DNA barcode research has revealed a significant taxonomic gap in this subfamily, and an estimated 70+ candidate species were identified. Many of these have subsequently been described, as well as numerous new discoveries.
Isalo National Park is a National Park in the Ihorombe Region of Madagascar, in the southwestern corner of the Province of Fianarantsoa. The closest town is Ranohira, and the closest cities are Toliara and Ihosy. It is a sandstone landscape that has been dissected by wind and water erosion into rocky outcrops, plateaus, extensive plains and up to 200 m deep canyons. There are permanent rivers and streams as well as many seasonal watercourses. Elevation varies between 510 and 1268 m.
The Manavi long-fingered bat is a bat in the genus Miniopterus that occurs in east-central Madagascar. First described in 1906, this species was later included in the mainland African M. minor. A 1995 revision united populations of small Miniopterus from Madagascar and the Comoros as M. manavi, but molecular and morphological studies in 2008 and 2009 showed that this concept of M. manavi in fact included five different species. M. manavi itself was restricted to a few locations in the eastern Central Highlands and populations in the Comoros and northern and western Madagascar were allocated to different species.
The Malagasy sacred ibis is a relatively large, heavily built ibis endemic to the west coast of Madagascar, and Aldabra on the Seychelles.
Jenkins's shrew tenrec is a species of mammal in the family Tenrecidae. It is endemic to Madagascar. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Tropical Cyclone Elita was an unusual tropical cyclone that made landfall on Madagascar three times. The fifth named storm of the 2003–04 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season, Elita developed in the Mozambique Channel on January 24, 2004. It strengthened to tropical cyclone status before striking northwestern Madagascar on January 28; it was the first storm to strike western Madagascar at that intensity since Cyclone Cynthia in 1991. Elita weakened to tropical depression status while crossing the island, and after exiting into the southwest Indian Ocean, it turned to the west and moved ashore in eastern Madagascar on January 31. After once again crossing the island, the cyclone reached the Mozambique Channel and re-intensified. Elita turned to the southeast to make its final landfall on February 3 along southwestern Madagascar. Two days later, it underwent an extratropical transition; subsequently, the remnant system moved erratically before dissipating on February 13.
Junonia oenone, the blue pansy or dark blue pansy, is a Nymphalid butterfly native to Africa. "Blue pansy" is also used in India to describe Junonia orithya.
Malagasy is an Austronesian language and the national language of Madagascar. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language, as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.
UA 8699 is a fossil mammalian tooth from the Cretaceous of Madagascar. A broken lower molar about 3.5 mm (0.14 in) long, it is from the Maastrichtian of the Maevarano Formation in northwestern Madagascar. Details of its crown morphology indicate that it is a boreosphenidan, a member of the group that includes living marsupials and placental mammals. David W. Krause, who first described the tooth in 2001, interpreted it as a marsupial on the basis of five shared characters, but in 2003 Averianov and others noted that all those are shared by zhelestid placentals and favored a close relationship between UA 8699 and the Spanish zhelestid Lainodon. Krause used the tooth as evidence that marsupials were present on the southern continents (Gondwana) as early as the late Cretaceous and Averianov and colleagues proposed that the tooth represented another example of faunal exchange between Africa and Europe at the time.
Hypogeomys australis is an extinct rodent from central and southeastern Madagascar. First described in 1903, it is larger than its close relative, the living Hypogeomys antimena, which occurs further west, but otherwise similar. Average length of the femur is 72.1 mm, compared to 63.8 mm in H. antimena. One of the few extinct rodents of Madagascar, it survived to at least around 1536 BP based on radiocarbon dating. Little is known of its ecology, but it may have lived in burrows like its living relative and eaten some arid-adapted plants.
Triaenops menamena is a bat in the genus Triaenops found on Madagascar, mainly in the drier regions. It was known as Triaenops rufus until 2009, when it was discovered that that name had been incorrectly applied to the species. Triaenops rufus is a synonym of Triaenops persicus, a Middle Eastern species closely related to T. menamena— the Malagasy species had previously been placed as a subspecies of T. persicus by some authors. Triaenops menamena is mostly found in forests, but also occurs in other habitats. It often roosts in large colonies and eats insects such as butterflies and moths. Because of its wide range, common occurrence, and tolerance of habitat degradation, it is not considered to be threatened.
Pipistrellus raceyi, also known as Racey's pipistrelle, is a bat from Madagascar, in the genus Pipistrellus. Although unidentified species of Pipistrellus had been previously reported from Madagascar since the 1990s, P. raceyi was not formally named until 2006. It is apparently most closely related to the Asian species P. endoi, P. paterculus, and P. abramus, and its ancestors probably reached Madagascar from Asia. P. raceyi has been recorded at four sites, two in the eastern and two in the western lowlands. In the east, it is found in open areas and has been found roosting in a building; in the west it occurs in dry forest. Because of uncertainties about its ecology, it is listed as "Data Deficient" on the IUCN Red List.
Miniopterus mahafaliensis is a bat in the genus Miniopterus that occurs in southwestern Madagascar. Populations of this species have historically been included in Miniopterus manavi, but molecular data published in 2008 and 2009 indicate that this supposed species in fact consists of five separate species, including the newly described M. mahafaliensis. The species has been found in dry, spiny, and gallery forest, as well as more open habitats, in southwestern Madagascar.
Galulatherium is a genus of probably gondwanathere from the Late Cretaceous (Turonian-Campanian) Galula Formation of Tanzania.
Durrell's vontsira is a Madagascan mammal in the family Eupleridae of the order Carnivora. It is most closely related to the brown-tailed mongoose, with which it forms the genus Salanoia. The two are genetically similar, but morphologically distinct, leading scientists to recognize them as separate species. After an individual was observed in 2004, the animal became known to science and S. durrelli was described as a new species in 2010. It is found only in the Lac Alaotra area.
Petter's big-footed mouse, is a Madagascan rodent in the genus Macrotarsomys. With a head and body length of 150 mm (5.9 in) and body mass of 105 g (3.7 oz), It is the largest species of its genus. The upperparts are brown, darkest in the middle of the back, and the underparts are white to yellowish. The animal has long whiskers, short forelimbs, and long hindfeet. The tail ends in a prominent tuft of long, light hairs. The skull is robust and the molars are low-crowned and cuspidate.
The western yellow bat is a species of vesper bat endemic to Madagascar.
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