Madagascar's Avifauna

The fourth biggest Island, Madagascar is one of the world's largest biodiversity centers. For its exceptional biodiversity in fauna and flora, it is often watched thoughtfully as a priority in terms of natural heritage conservation. Due to its insularity, the biodiversity of the big island represents a unique and specific heritage in the world (Acquier et al., 1999). The level of endemicity of its fauna and flora places it as a living laboratory of nature.

The Malagasy birdlife is currently well known, thanks to the scientific researches and publications to which they gave rise. The originality of Madagascar is recognized for its biodiversity and well reflected in its birds. Because of its geological separation, much of Madagascar's biodiversity has evolved into the geographical isolation of the other parts of the world. A large number of taxa from the animal and plant kingdom prove this long history of isolation, and it has repercussions on certain particularities of the birds of Madagascar. The first particularity is its relative poverty in numbers of resident species compared to Africa mainland or other large tropical islands such as Borneo. The second characteristic is the level of endemism; the island has high levels of the birds' genus (25%) and species (52.2%) endemism (Hawkins and Goodman, 2003).

As for many other groups of Madagascar's fauna and flora, the affinities of the Malagasy birds are mainly African. Recent molecular studies confirm these links and even beyond previously estimated trends because the few representatives for whom close relatives were estimated in Asia, turn out to be clearly African origins (Cibois et al., 2001; Kirchman et al., 2001; Yamagishi, 2001; Reddy et al., 2012). In the 1980s, our fundamental knowledge on Malagasy birdlife was compiled in the works of Milnes Edwards and Grandidier (1885), Rand (1936) and Milon et al. (1937), and focused on data from the mid-twentieth century. At the end of the 1980s and with the implementation of nature protection programs, NGOs formulated the need for field data and also opened projects for the study of threatened taxa (Willme, 2013).

Previously, Cretaceous fossils have revealed ancestral forms of birds with five taxa including Rahonavis ostromis that existed 80 million years ago and have been found close to Archeopteryx. The family of Aepyornithideae, unique to Madagascar, includes at least four species, all of which are extinct (Aepyornis gracilis, A. hildebrandti, A. maximus, A. medius), which could potentially have insured the dispersion of palms. The legendary elephant birds were still alive in the memory of people in the 17th century. Alaotra Grebe Tachybaptus rufolavatus is now extinct. Madagascan Pochard — Aythya innotata was recently seen for the first time since the end of the 20th century.

Among the approximately 310 bird species recorded in Madagascar, around 112 are endemic to the island (BirdLife International, 2024), giving Madagascar the highest percentage of endemic species of any major country in the world. Like other taxonomic groups in the Malagasy rainforests, birdlife contains a significant percentage of endemic species. More than half of the resident taxa on the island are found nowhere else (Langrand 1995). Seventy-nine of these endemic species and 33 of the 37 regionally endemic genera are found only in forests. Ninety percent of the species restricted to the forest are therefore endemic.

Over 200 species breed locally on the island, while the remainder include migratory visitors, vagrants, and non-breeding residents. Among breeding species, several seabirds and shorebirds nest on offshore islands and coastal wetlands (Ardeola idae, Glareola ocularis, Cuculus rochii and Eurystomus glaucurus).

For migratory birds on the Afro-Eurasian route, including shorebirds wintering in Madagascar, the decline rate of birds is 40% (Wetlands International, 2008) and 10% are classified as Globally Threatened or Nearly Endangered and several other birds continue to disappear (BirdLife, 2008; IUCN, 2016).

At least four species found in the wild were introduced to Madagascar by humans (Columba livia, Acridotheres tristis, Passer domesticus and Estrilda astrild) and another Numida meleagris. The only breeding species in Africa, Palearctic migrants (most Charadriiformes as well as two Falconiformes) winter in Madagascar.