Summary: <p>I swear I didn’t make up the word tratratratra! It’s a real word for an animal that was probably real, although it may be extinct now. Let’s learn about this Lemur of Mystery and some of its friends!</p> <p>A mouse lemur:</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-732" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/mouselemur-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225"></p> <p>An indri:</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-733" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/indri-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199"></p> <p>King Julian:</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-731" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/kingj-271x300.jpg" alt="" width="271" height="300"></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Further reading:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.aeecl.org/lemurnews/lemurnews2010_15.pdf">Lemur News</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Search-Last-Undiscovered-Animals/dp/1435101316/ref=sr_1_29?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1532003000&sr=1-29&refinements=p_27%3AKarl+Shuker">The Search for the Last Undiscovered Animals</a> by Karl P.N. Shuker</p> <p><strong>Show transcript:</strong></p> <p>Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw.</p> <p>This week we’re looking at an animal with a name I swear I’m not making up, the tratratratra. Seriously, it’s a real name. The animal itself…well, we’re not exactly sure.</p> <p>Tratratratra is the name of an animal that was supposedly common in Madagascar when the Malagasy people settled there around 2000 years ago. It was described as a lemur about the size of a calf with a human face but hands more like a monkey’s. Supposedly it still lives on Madagascar in remote, hard-to-reach areas.</p> <p>Madagascar is a big island off the coast of East Africa, with smaller islands around it. It has been isolated from both Africa and Asia for 88 million years, so many of its plants and animals are found nowhere else on earth. Lemurs are one example. There are over 100 known species and subspecies of lemur on Madagascar, but lemurs are found nowhere else in the world. Even more species of lemur have gone extinct since humans settled on the island, including one that might be the tratratratra.</p> <p>First of all, what’s a lemur? If you’ve seen the movie Madagascar, you have a pretty good idea of what a lemur looks like, although you may overestimate the amount of dancing they do.</p> <p>Technically the lemur is a primate, although it doesn’t look much like other primates at first glance. Different species can look radically different, of course, but in general they’re long-bodied animals with long tails and monkey-like hands and feet with nails instead of claws. They’re mostly social animals who eat plants and fruit, although some eat insects, arthropods, and other small animals. Most lemur societies are female-led. All are endangered due to habitat loss, poaching, and the illegal pet trade.</p> <p>While we tend to think of apes and monkeys when we hear the word primate, the primate order contains many other types of animal. Lemurs belong to the Strepsirrhini suborder, which includes bushbabies, pottos, and lorises. Apes and monkeys be</p>
