It’s millions of years old, larger than California and home to creatures that exist nowhere else on Earth

Madagascar holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest island in the world, after it split off from Africa during the Early Jurassic period (around 180 million years ago) and the Indian subcontinent during the Late Cretaceous period (around 90 million years ago).

Its landmass was previously part of the supercontinent Gondwana.

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Separated from Africa by the Mozambique Channel, a 419km-wide arm of the Indian Ocean, the island’s wildlife evolved in relative isolation.

It’s the fourth largest island in the world (after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo), measuring approximately 590,841 square kilometres. This makes it larger than the US state of California (which spans 423,967 square kilometres).

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Madagascan wildlife

Madagascar has many different habitats, including tidal marshes, seagrass beds, mangroves, karst, forests and some of the world’s largest coral reef systems.

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These diverse habitats, combined with the island’s geographical isolation, has led to Madagascar becoming a biodiversity hotspot.

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According to the WWF, approximately 95 per cent of Madagascar’s reptiles and 92 per cent of its mammals exist nowhere else on Earth.

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One of these animals are lemurs. Although lemurs are related to monkeys and great apes through the primate family, lemurs are actually prosimians (a group which also includes lorises and tarsiers).

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With little competition from other primates, lemurs flourished in Madagascar, with over 100 known species.

However, lemurs are now one of the world’s most endangered group of mammals.

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In 2022, researchers from Kew and 50 other international organisations discovered that within vascular plants alone, 82 per cent of the 11,516 native described species found in Madagascar are endemic.

And out of the 40,283 plant species known to be used by humans worldwide, 5 per cent are found in Madagascar. Of these, 1,595 are endemic, including plants with medicinal properties, food plants and other plants with uses such as mitigation against climate change.

Top image: Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park in Madagascar. Credit: Paul Souders/Getty Images