Local form Nosy Mangabe

Distribution of the local form Nosy Mangabe:

Nosy Mangabe (translated as “very beautiful island”) is an island with a size of 5,2 km² that is situated a few kilometers southeast of Maroantsetra in Antongil Bay. You can reach it from Maroantsetra by boat in less than half an hour. The island is a special reserve for Aye-Ayes and part of Masoala national park, which is located vis-à-vis. It is completely covered by rainforest, but the west side has a nice golden-colored beach. Due to its remote location, only very few travelers visit this island, and we are some of the hand full of people that stay overnight there every year.

Appearance of this local form:

As an island form, a very color-faithful local form has developed here, which shows only little variation in itself. The males are quasi “divided in two” on the whole body: They carry green colors on the body above the white lateral stripe, below the lateral stripe they are red. The bridge of the nose and helmet is green, and the throat pouch and eyelids are red. In adult males, the banding on the body, which other local forms show clearly, is only faintly visible or somewhat more obvious when excited.

In Madagascar, it is illegal to catch animals in protected areas or even inside national parks. If you find this local form outside Madagascar, you can be sure that the chameleon was either illegally exported or is not from this local form. In most cases, the offered animals are simply sold under the wrong local form name to raise the prices.

Weight table

Gewichtstabelle Furcifer pardalis 2018

Gewicht = weight in grams, Kopf-Rumpf-Länge = snout-vent-length in cm, Weibchen = females, Männchen = males

Since 2015, we have been measuring the weights of chameleons found by us in Madagascar, as far as the animals (and our scales) participate. In the long term, we aim to obtain an average weight in relation to snout-vent-length (measured from the tip of the nose to the cloaca) for each species from as many measurements as possible. It is important to know that all weights were measured towards the end of the rainy season (= best food supply), so these should be maximum weights on Madagascar. Triangular symbols in females mean not pregnant, round symbols mean pregnant. In Furcifer pardalis, contrary to our original assumption, it has so far turned out that there are no serious differences in the ratio of SVL to weight between the individual local forms.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Average temperature	24	25	24	24	23	21	20	20	21	22	23	24
Minimum temperature	20	21	20	20	18	17	16	16	17	17	19	20
Maximum temperature	28	29	28	28	27	25	25	25	25	27	27	28
Rain days	26	23	25	19	17	18	21	21	16	17	20	24

We have collected the data given above over several years with thermometers and hygrometers at the finding places of the chameleons. "Average temperature" means that values of a whole month have been calculated to one average value per month. For example all measured minimum temperature values of February have been calculated to one average minimum temperature for February. In plain language, this means single peak values of a day may be a little higher or lower than the average minimum and maximum temperatures. It is possible that a location has an average maximum temperature of 29°C, but one day during that month it had 33°C or even 35°C there.

Climate on Nosy Mangabe is a very humid place. It is raining all year long with especially intense precipitation during rainy season. The rainforest of this island reaches right to the edge of the beach, and is an old forest with many huge trees and much undergrowth.

Temperatures on Nosy Mangabe are rather constant all over the year with few variation. Temperatures during daytime reach 25°C, in rainy season they might be around 30°C. Instead dry season has cooler temperatures, but only few °C less: It is still warm with around 25°C during the day. At night, temperature drops only few degrees.

Tageszeit = day time, Sonne = sun, Halbschatten = half shade, Schatten = shade

We have measured UVB data with a Solarmeter 6.5 in spring (end of March) at the peak of activity of chameleons in Madagascar. We always measured the values that a chameleon could maximally reach in its habitat.

Unfortunately, we have no ground temperatures for Nosy Mangabe available yet.

Habitat:

The easiest way to find panther chameleons on Nosy Mangabe is to walk along the beach during low tide. They can often be found exposed on low branches in the trees hanging over the beach. The whole ground of the island is sandy and except the beach everywhere covered with lots of foliage. The rainforest is dense, old and lush. Lianas thick as arms can be found all around the island. Some bamboo groves exist, but panther chameleons avoid these. Some streams run through the area and there are some rocky parts.