The mouth of a cave in Madagascar, one of many that contain primate subfossil specimens.
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The mouth of a cave in Madagascar, one of many that contain primate subfossil specimens. | The Madagascar project gathers new collections of primate and other vertebrate subfossils from caves in limestone karst regions and from swamp deposits at a variety of sites, but particularly from a series of pit caves in the Manamby plateau north of Tulear; also we gather material from various sites in western Madagascar, the Ankarana range of northern Madagascar as well as the marsh site Ampasambazimba in the Itasy basin and the Masinandriana site east of Antsirabe. This research program has developed across several years as a result of earlier grants from the National Geographic Society and awards from NSF. The field seasons carried out under these grants led to recovery of the most complete skeletons known for nearly all the different species of giant extinct lemurs and many lines of investigation have been initiated by finds already made. Our Malagasy co-researchers at the University of Antananarivo have also made available for research and comparative study their remarkable collection, which includes the lemur subfossils originally housed at the Académie Malgache. Fossils secured have been divided between Antananarivo and Duke Universities and are now so extensive that the research proposed here has the objective not only of finding new important material but carrying out expanded comparative research, preparation and conservation of the material newly brought into the collections at Duke and Antananarivo University. |