To the rest of the world, Madagascar’s wilderness appears as a peculiar, remixed version of theirs. Its remaining nature, threatened by development, hosts animals only distantly familiar. Instead of big cats, the Fossa, a relative of the mongoose, prowls the undergrowth, holding an uncanny resemblance to a cougar. It hunts the many lemurs which adapted to fill available niches on the island, such as the Aye-Aye. Without any Malagasy woodpeckers to compete with, these creepy, pale-faced lemurs with yellow, beady eyes, took their role. Using their long, bony middle fingers like a woodpecker’s beak, they dig holes into trees in search of grubs. The largest lemur species, the ring-tailed lemur, must also avoid predation from these cat-like mongooses as they scavenge for food and defend their territory.
Ghosts of Paintings Past: Pentimenti in Art History
Nowadays we can use all sorts of techniques to look down through layers of paint to discover what lies underneath a painting. As I…