On Friday, July 22, we went to Parc Mitsinjo in Andasibe. Our guide was Jeanne Claude, and he took us through the rainforest in the morning. Almost immediately, he found a chameleon, the horned chameleon (see above pic!). The male has the horn. One of the Park’s biggest projects is the tree nursery. It ‘s approximately 1 hectare in area. In 2005, they started it and they grow native species and connect the pieces of the park and the forest. There are 3 types of trees: grow fast, grow slow, and grow very slow. They mix the three categories together. If an invasive species pops up, it’s quickly removed and replaced with a native species. We saw the Calumma nasutum, the smallest of the calumma genus. It means big nose, little chameleon. Jeanne also showed us a parasitic plant growing through/on a host plant. It takes the sugar and nutrients from the host. The park has 50 different species of orchids. We also saw some indri in the forest. One came very close and another guide fed them fresh tree sprouts (Mary’s words, not mine). Indri can’t cohabitate with other groups of indri, but they can with other lemur species. This is because the other species eat other types of food that the indri do not; no competition for food. Another fun fact about the indri: only the males fight, using their teeth. The females stay higher up in the trees and call loudly during the fight.
