Africa

Madagascar is considered a biodiversity hotspot, meaning it has a large population of species that cannot be found anywhere else. The southern Indian Ocean island has been cut off from the African continent for over 80 million years. This separation allowed the development of an extraordinary array of plants and animals, which cannot be found anywhere else on Earth. But after humans settled on the island 2,500 years ago, many species started to disappear. The risk to Madagascar's mammals threatens a biodiversity crisis that would take more than 20 million years to heal, scientists warn. "If the endemic fauna and flora of Madagascar goes extinct, there will be a collapse of ecosystems on the island," said Luis Lima Valente, senior researcher at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands.