Explore Ankarana

Lying within sight of the Mozambique Channel in northwestern Madagascar, Ankarana is an ancient coral reef that has gone to fossil. It rises up to 900 feet above the surrounding savannah, where people of the Antankarana tribe—one of 18 officially recognized tribes on the island—live a pastoral life.

Like a stormy sea frozen in stone, the karst spires that make for a sharp and pointy roof for the Ankarana massif are known as tsingy. The term comes from the Malagasy word for tiptoeing, as the pinnacles are spaced so close together that Madagascar's people say you can't put your foot down between them.

In some places the roof of giant caverns has collapsed and small lakes have filled the resulting depression. Fed and aerated by underground rivers coursing through the massif, the lakes provide both nursery and nourishment for many species of plants and animals, both aquatic and terrestrial.

More than 60 miles of underground passages wend through the massif. Some have subterranean rivers rushing through them; others, like this one, are dry. In places some of the passages, including this one, are bisected by canyons bearing relict forests, some of which contain species unique to that single patch of woods.

Bearing a strong Lost World feel to them, the sunken forests of Ankarana's numerous canyons are cool havens in an otherwise scorching environment. The surrounding walls block out direct sunlight at all times save for midday.

A skylight in Andrafiabé Cave spotlights a visitor. The roofs of some caves tower 500 feet above the sandy floor. Myriad forms of life exist within these caverns, from numerous species of bats and insects to a single species of giant reptile—the Nile crocodile.

Madagascar used to boast an array of "megafauna" such as elephant birds, giant lemurs, and pygmy hippos. Today, for reasons that remain unclear, all of the "big animals" are gone, rendered extinct sometime in the past 2,000 years. The only survivor is the Nile crocodile, whose representatives at Ankarana enter the caves when the heat or the lack of water outside drives them in.

Seventy feet up on a filming platform, cinematographer Nick Gordon points out the female leader of a troop of crowned lemurs he filmed for "Secrets of the Crocodile Caves." Lemurs are an early form of primate that are found naturally only on Madagascar, which bears more than 50 species.

Malagasy guide Angeluc Razafimanantsoa holds an anesthetized fossa ("FOO-sa"), the island's largest mammalian carnivore. This young male fossa has been caught temporarily for scientific study and will soon be released back into Ankarana's forest. Like a cross between a mongoose and a mountain lion, with a tail fully as long as its body, the fossa is a viverid, an ancient line of meat-eater that predates the cat and dog families.

Many species of invertebrates manage to thrive both on and inside Ankarana, including this giant millipede. Most are harmless to human visitors, but some creatures are to be scrupulously avoided, among them scorpions, stinging centipedes, and deadly spiders.