NASA ISS Image: Saint Augustin Madagascar and the mouth of Onilahy

NASA ISS Image of Saint Augustin Madagascar district of Toliara II and the mouth of Onilahy

Estuaries on the northwestern coast of Madagascar

Estuaries on the northwestern coast of Madagascar. Bombetoka Bay (top left) and Mahajamba Bay (top right) host large regions of mangrove, an important ecological area for nature.

Picture: BARCROFT

NASA MODIS Image: Tropical Cyclone Bingiza: Madagascar

Tropical Cyclone Bingiza made landfall on Madagascar on February 14, 2011.

The U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that, as of about noon Madagascar time on February 14, Bingiza had maximum sustained winds of 85 knots (155 kilometers per hour) and gusts up to 105 knots (195 kilometers per hour).

The storm was located roughly 250 nautical miles (465 kilometers) northeast of Antananarivo.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image at 10:00 a.m. local time on February 13, 2011. Bingiza’s eye approaches northern Madagascar, and a spiral arm grazes Antananarivo.

Although Bingiza would weaken somewhat over land, the storm was expected to re-strengthen after passing over northern Madagascar, thanks to high sea surface temperatures. The JTWC forecast that, on the western side of Madagascar, the storm would travel southward, roughly tracing the island’s west coast.

New Carnivore found in Madagascar

A photo issued by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust of Durrell's vontsira (Salanoia durrelli), a new species of carnivore which has been discovered in Madagascar.

The cat-sized, speckled brown mammal belongs to a family of mongoose-like animals found only on the island nation and is probably one of the most threatened carnivores in the world, researchers said

Picture: Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust/PA

Prehistoric Pygmy Sea Cow Discovered in Madagascar

A new species of extinct pygmy sea cow (illustrated above with skull inset) is one of the first fossil mammal species found in Madagascar from the mysterious time period between 80 million years ago and 90,000 years ago, experts say.

"There's a big gap where we really don't know anything about what's going on in the fossil record," said study leader Karen Samonds, of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Sea cows, or sirenians, today include manatees and dugongs.

Known from a roughly 40-million-year-old skull and a few ribs, the new species has been named Eotheroides lambondrano, after the Malagasy word for dugong, which translates to "water bushpig." At about seven feet (two meters) long, the ancient pygmy sea cow was smaller than the modern dugong, which ranges from about 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3 meters) in length.

The pygmy sea cow would have been "a neat in-between" animal in the evolution from primitive land-dwelling mammals to today's aquatic sea cows, Samonds said. (Explore a prehistoric time line.)

E. lambondrano is also unique in that its closest relatives would have lived in what is now India and Egypt, according to the study—making its Madagascan location all the more special.

"This fossil gives us a new glimpse not just at a new time period, but at a new place," said Samonds, whose work was funded in part by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

"Madagascar already has a lot of strange beasts, and we now have a glimpse of this species from so far away."

Findings published December 12 in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.