How Madagascar’s Lemurs and Baobab Trees Rescued Me

Giant, thick-barked baobab trees of Madagascar can hold 20,000 gallons of water in the island’s desert areas. They are known as “The Tree of Life.”

It was a tough week. First, the nation passed another grim milestone — 200,000 people lost in the pandemic, a number larger than the population of many American cities. Then I received word that a relative living in a senior care facility had contracted COVID-19. Finally, the stunning news of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an iconic public servant and fearless trailblazer for women.

We take our solace where we can find it. I’m an inveterate viewer of nature programs. This week, I drew comfort and inspiration from a documentary on the tenacious plant and animal life found on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar.

Madagascar is home to one of the oldest of mammals — the balletic, ingenious and adaptable lemur. Lemurs arrived on Madagascar some 55 million years ago, having traveled as castaways on vegetation washed over the ocean from Africa. An astounding feat in itself. Equally amazing is how lemurs continue to stare down countless obstacles and still manage to survive.

Ring-tailed lemurs have managed to find a food source in the euphorbia plant, which oozes a sap that would burn human skin but is mother’s milk to this species of lemur.

Ring-tailed lemurs, so named because of the black rings on their white tails, reside in one of the most inhospitable parts of the island, an area of thorned trees known as the Spiny Forest. Yet, these lemurs managed to find their salvation in the sharp-edged shoots of the euphorbia, a plant whose sap is so caustic it would burn the skin of any human.

Out of necessity, these lemurs have grown resistant to the plant’s corrosive elements. Its sap for them is like mother’s milk.

The athletic Decken’s sifaka lemur has developed thick soles in order to leap over sharp limestone pinnacles in search of food. (Photo by Stephen Alvarez)

The Decken’s sifaka lemur is another tough survivor. Albino white except for their black face and paws, these lemurs leap like bladerunners across spire-like limestone formations sharp enough to shred human skin.

They can do this because they developed spindly legs with thick rubbery soles. That protects them from the limestone’s pointed shards and allows them to leap as far as thirty feet in a single bound.

The aye aye lemur displays long digits for tapping branches and digging out grubs. (Photo courtesy of The London Economic).

Alone among their lemur cousins, the aye aye lemur has long, thin fingers that can grow to three and a half inches. They use them to tap on branches to determine where they are most hollow. Then they gnaw at the hollow spots with their teeth, reach in with their elongated finger, and pull out some fresh grubs for supper. Yum.

Lemurs aren’t the only durable wildlife on Madagascar. The desert western edge of the island contains baobab trees that can grow as tall as 100 feet. What’s extraordinary is that these giant baobabs can survive three years without so much as a single drop of rain.

In the rainy season, though, a hollowed-out baobab trunk can hold up to 20,000 gallons of water. In this way, the trees become reservoirs that hold enough water each year to keep Madagascar’s human desert dwellers alive.

In her poem, “When I Am Among the Trees,” Mary Oliver observes how trees, “give off such hints of gladness/ I would almost say they save me, and daily.”

That is literally the truth with the Madagascar baobab. No wonder native dwellers call it “The Tree of Life.”

“All creatures are like syllables in a song which God is singing,” the spirituality writer Thomas Merton once said. We might think we are foremost in a hierarchy of living things, but we can learn and draw inspiration from the community of beings — both plant and wildlife — with whom we share the planet.

There is a sad coda, though, to the story of wildlife perseverence on Madagascar. Due to loss of habitat, about 95 percent of the island’s lemurs are in danger of extinction. Like the wildfires scorching the western U.S. (and Australia last year), it is an example of how human actions can upset the delicate balance of nature.

After learning about the lemurs and baobab trees of Madagascar, I look differently now at the starlings, squirrels, cardinals, elms, oaks and hickories that populate my little patch of earth in central Illinois. What are the lessons they are trying to teach me?

I felt rescued this week from my sadness, frustration and grief by the creative resourcefulness of the lemurs and by the titanic generosity of the baobab trees. They show us we can adapt and survive in difficult and even life-threatening conditions.

This week, can we take even some small action to help our plant and animal companions survive and thrive?

The island of Madagascar was formed about 90 million years ago when Asia broke from Africa. It contains desert, mountainous areas and a tropical rain forest.