The Northern Highlands are a mountainous
biogeographical
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...
region of northern
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Afric ...
. The region includes the
Tsaratanana Massif
Madagascar is a large island in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of southern Africa, east of Mozambique. It has a total area of with of land and of water. Madagascar is the fourth largest island and the 2nd largest island country in th ...
(with the highest mountain of Madagascar,
) and smaller nearby massifs such as
Marojejy
Marojejy National Park () is a national park in the Sava region of northeastern Madagascar. It covers and is centered on the Marojejy Massif, a mountain chain that rises to an elevation of . Access to the area around the massif was restrict ...
,
Anjanaharibe-Sud, and
Manongarivo
Manongarivo Reserve is a wildlife reserve in the North-West of Madagascar in the region of Diana.
Manongarivo is home to both the Sambirano mouse lemur and the Sambirano woolly lemur.
Geography
The reserve has a surface of 64,356 ha and is si ...
. The
Mandritsara Window
Mandritsara is a city and commune (commune urbain, mg, kaominina) in northern Madagascar. It belongs to the district of Mandritsara, which is a part of Sofia Region. The population of the commune was estimated to be approximately 17,000 in 2001 ...
separates the Northern from the
Central Highlands and apparently acts as a barrier to
dispersal between the two highlands, leading to
species pair
In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...
s such as ''
Voalavo gymnocaudus
The northern voalavo (''Voalavo gymnocaudus''), also known as the naked-tailed voalavo or simply the voalavo, is a rodent in the family Nesomyidae found in the Northern Highlands of Madagascar. Discovered in 1994 and formally described in 1998, it ...
'' (Northern Highlands) and ''
Voalavo antsahabensis
The eastern voalavo (''Voalavo antsahabensis'') is a rodent in the family Nesomyidae which occurs in the Anjozorobe forest of eastern Madagascar. Although surveys before 2002 failed to record the species, it is common in some places. However, it i ...
'' (Central Highlands). None of the montane
endemics
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
of Tsaratanana are shared with the major massifs of the Central Highlands.
[Raxworthy and Nussbaum, 1998, table 2]
Natural regions
References
Literature cited
*Goodman, S.M., Rakotondravony, D., Randriamanantsoa, H.N. and Rakotomalala-Razanahoera, M. 2005. A new species of rodent from the montane forest of central eastern Madagascar (Muridae: Nesomyinae: ''Voalavo''). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 118(4):863–873.
*Goodman, S.M., Raxworthy, C.J., Maminirina, C.P. and Olson, L.E. 2006. A new species of shrew tenrec (''Microgale jobihely'') from northern Madagascar. Journal of Zoology 270:384–398.
*Raxworthy, C.J. and Nussbaum, R.A. 1996
Montane amphibian and reptile communities in Madagascar(subscription required). Conservation Biology 10(3):750–756.
Biogeography
Geography of Madagascar
Highlands
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