my trip cruise to Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and La Reunion

[PatrickT]

Just came back from my super awesome 14 day cruise on indian ocean and want share some pics with you.

It was plain and simple awesome. Mauritius, Seychelles and La reunion were pure paradise...and Madagascar...was by far greatest experience i ever had. To see this nature up close was amazing. The animals and flowers are so unique. 80% of spcies living on Madagascar are endemic. Its like a small continent.

I saw so many reptiles, birds, lemurs and so on and want use this topic to show you. I would also be happy if you guys could help me out with some species that i don´t know what they were.

I will start it chronological and also show some impressions from the entire tour.

I started from Frankfurt with Condor Flugdienst. Our aircraft was quite nice:

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The flight was really long. It too 12 hours till we landed on Mauritius

Mauritius was awesome and beautiful:

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I saw this bird there, can anyone tell me what it is?

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The inner valleys are gigantic:

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also lots of wild monkeys there:

They said they were introduced by the dutch there:

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We watched an area covered with really colorful volcanic ash:

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We then left after few days for the Seychelles...

[PatrickT]

Seychelels were awesome as well. On Mahe on our way to the Catamarn for La Digue i spottedt several skinks:

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I think they are named Seychelels Skink

I also saw several Seychelles cardinals:

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And of course Aldabra giant turtle:

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It was also interesting, that i could spot this strange bird. Does anyone know what it is?

http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151227/uddl6597.jpg

We then took the Catamaran to the island Praslin. We visited the Valle de Mai which has giant forest of endemic Coco de Mer palm trees:

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I saw this wonderful day gecko there. It was a pair but i only managed to get a pic of one:

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can anyone guess the species?

We then left for the rest of the day to the neighbor island La Digue, famous for its beaches.

[PatrickT]

La Digue has awesome landscales and beaches:

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There was a brakish and mangrove area where a small river went into the sea and on its shores i spotted several mudskippers:

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Too be honest i saw no reptiles on La Digue beside the typical seychelles skink. But the beaches were stunning:

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I only know lakes in germany and did never swim in sea before, so the waves were kinda new for me :D

I first did not go far into it and first checked out how exactly it worked:

then checked it out :D

http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151227/td7dcrdr.jpg

drinking coconut stuff there is a great way to end the day and we left for Madagaskar later on...and i must say while evry place was amazing, Madagaskar was a blast.

[PatrickT]

We first visited the Lokobe rain forest.

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You reach this place with small canu and we had a local guide who toured us through the forest. One must know that Madagascar is not a tourist area,. Its a very poor nation but people are so friendly, proud and welcoming that its simply awesome. Since there are virtually little to no tourists as a german you get pretty famous pretty fast. Wherever i went people came, greeted me and invited me or wanted a picture.

We took a canu to the forest and one guy from a local village led us through the forest:

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[IMG]http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151227/indbxxyi.jpg

The forest itself was an awesome place full of exotic animals and maybe you guys can label some for me?

[PatrickT]

I saw this Furcifer pardalis chamaeleon:

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and we first spotted a small brown lemur in the trees:

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and another one:

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the brown are female and black ones male.

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on the forest floor between dry leafs we found a dwarf chameleon Brookesia...there were dozens of them:

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http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151227/sxawlpvm.jpg

[PatrickT]

I think this is some form of Uroplatus gecko? Can you label it? We found 2. They were pretty big:

http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151227/ljzygju8.jpg

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We also spotted a quite big madagascar ground boa, which was super nice to see in the wild, considering how rare this species is.

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We also spotted a small colubrid snake. But the pic is bad because she was very fast. Maybe you can tell me what it was? I marked it:

http://i68.tinypic.com/xbgtio.jpg

[PatrickT]

Next day we went to Diego Suarez and visited the red Tsingy. Thats a canyon in a savannah like environment. It looks awesome:

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Baobab trees:

http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151227/35jsdrpe.jpg

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we spotted this chameleon there. Maybe you know its species?

http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151227/46kpntl6.jpg

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We stayed over night at a village and those two ladies here owned a shop there and invited my and my buddy:

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It was super awesome and we both became like an attraction there. They cooked tons of food for us and i felt like my belly will burst. When we went back at hotel at night i was so full that i just dropped into the bed:

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I think i never before had so much rice, chicken ever before.

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[PatrickT]

next day we made it to the red tsingy. Take a look. The pics speak for themself:

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[Humble308]

Holy smokes man, that's a trip of a lifetime. Fantastic pictures!

[Manietsky]

Nice pics! What a trip... Definetely on my bucket list to see such animals by eye in nature!

[FWK]

Wow, I don't have the words to express how jealous I am. A dream trip for sure. Thank you for taking the time to post the pictures.

The mystery snake may be a Leioheterodon madagascariensis. There isn't a whole lot to go on, but then there really aren't too many snakes it could be. This paper (http://www.francoandreone.it/docs/Andreone%20et%20al_2003_Nosy%20Be.pdf) has a list of all herps recorded on Nosy Be, the island the Lokobe Reserve in on.

[PatrickT]

Thanks, so the dwarf cham was Brookesia stumpffi

The colubrid snake looked like Leioheterodon madagascariensis. It had similar markings. I saw it quite clearly but moved very fast so it was hard taking pictures. The guide and i tried to catch her but she outsmarted us and we bumped just our heads against each other lol. Thanks for the paper it helped me alot...and also scared the **** out of me...crocdylus niloticus? For real???? I waded through murky water!!!!

Here are more pics. :)

We also went to Tamatave in central Madagascar:

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http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151227/wrfayvpi.jpg

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super rare Astrochelys radiata

http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151227/4liv9oo8.jpg

[PsychoSnake]

I've always thought about visiting Madagascar and this is plain torture as I'm too poor to afford vacations abroad. :D Awesome photos! Thanks for sharing!

[Nightflight99]

Great pics! Thanks for sharing!

[PatrickT]

Thanks for the nice words. I loved it there. The people are amazing and the nature is so gigantic. 80% of species are endemic. Thats more than australia. Madagascar is not an island. Its basicly a continent.

[Wingbeats]

I'm so jealous, take me with you next time :D
Haha, thanks for the great pics!

[PatrickT]

Dont know if my next trip will be very good for herping.

I´m going to Chile next year. We tour the entire nation from north Atacama down to Patagonia and Fireland.

Any interesting reptiles there? Make me a list.