thephotosocietyのインスタグラム(thephotosociety) - 2月7日 03時08分

Photo by @salvarezphoto | words by @neilshea13 — In one version of the story the island of Madagascar starts out empty, nothing but rocks and plants. The animals show up later, and by accident. They came aboard floating clumps of vegetation that somehow—by earthquake, hurricane, or whirlwind—were lopped off Africa and Asia and pushed out to sea. // No one knows how many rafts arrived but slowly the island filled with castaways and slowly evolution went to work on them, stretching, sculpting, pimping, freaking. For eons Madagascar was a lab specializing in the inimitable, and by the time humans got there the original animal pilgrims were long gone, nothing more than genetic scraps forgotten in some evolutionary basement. // Today, returning through the silent forest to our damp depressing tents we find find this chameleon trying hard to go unnoticed, camouflaged like old bark on a rotten log. Splayed feet, stump of tail, pure beauty. He does not remember his ancestors or where they came from but he sure as hell knows—when he sees we’re not predators, just paparazzi—that he’s won the sweepstakes. What I love, beyond his knotted skin, free orbit of eye, and perpetual frown, is the mystery of his design and the question that follows from it, which is answered three years later by scientists who discover a chameleon even smaller, one that could fit on your fingernail. They named the newfound lizard Micra, meaning tiny, and that’s scientists for you. But the name seems too plain, too clumsy for a creature that spent a million years prototyping and refining, working out bugs, whittling itself down to something less than a whisper.
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When the fieldwork is finished, one form of exploration ends and another begins. Join us over the next week as we share stories from our work in Madagascar’s Tsingy de Bemaraha, and consider how the landscapes, animals, and ideas drew us in and continue to inspire. To see more of our documentary work for @ナショナルジオグラフィック, check in @salvarezphoto and @neilshea13.
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#2009 #madagascar #malagasy #tsingy #stoneforest #chameleon #lizards #evolution #eighthcontinent #landscapes #documentary #adventure #climbing #whyexplore #ontheroadNG

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