Featured animal: Fossa

Fossa

 Cryptoprocta Ferox

 

Famous for its wildlife, Madagascar is certainly home to some weird animals. Primitive primates; lemurs in place of monkeys, a multitude of insect eating tenrecs and the bizarre chameleons make up some of the countries' most notable inhabitants. Today's post will focus on Madagascar's top (aside from humans of course) predator, the Fossa.

With a face like a mongoose, stocky feet and a long cat like tail at first glance they could be mistaken for a puma with a squashed face, or an elongated otter. Belonging to the family known as the "Magalasy Carnivores" (Eupleridae) the fossa is closest related to Madagascar's other predators, such as the Fanaloka and Magalasy Civet. All Euplerid species are then in tern related to the Mongoose family. 

  Fossa are found solely on the island of Madagascar, where they are found in the forested regions, but seem absent from the centre of the island. Mainly areboreal (tree dwelling), the fossa's main source of prey is lemurs, though they also hunt birds and reptiles. Fossa are reported to be active during both the night and day time (cathermal), with most of their activity being early in the morning, and late in the day. 

A mostly solitary species, Fossa will only come together to breed, though there have been observations made of several Fossa hunting together. Article on cooperative hunting. Apparantly this behaviour could have stemmed from when Fossa hunted the now extinct giant lemur.

Fossa mating takes place in trees, with several males competing for a singular female. Once the female has chosen her male and mated, she will give birth and raise her young alone. Mother fossas will make a den in tree hollows or rocky crevices, and subsequently give birth to one to six young. The young are born blind and with much lighter brown fur. The young become independant of their mother at around a year old, but may not leave her until they reach sexual maturity at around two years old. 

In captivity Fossa can live up to twenty years old, whereas their wild lifespan is probabyl much shorter. 

Traditionally the fossa has been disliked by Magalasy people and described as "greedy and agressive". There are many social taboos surrounding it, and whilst some Magalasy will not eat it, it is hunted for bushmeat by others. It has gained a bad reputation due to its habit of scavenging corpses which are buried in shallow graves, and are trapped by some Magalasy people because of this.

Due to its scarcity in Madagascar, the Fossa is listed as vulnerable by the ICUN red list, and is especially threatened by habitat destruction. 

Fossa are held in fairly sparsley across the globe in captivity, with Europe having a fair few. Montpellier zoo in France first bred fossa in 1974. In the UK, there are nine collections which hold fossa, though I have only been to two of these zoos; Marwell and Newquay. In the past both Marwell and Newquay kept their Fossa seperated from one another, to replicate their natural solitary lifestyle, though noqthey are both down to just one fossa each. I'm not sure how well Fossa have been bred in the UK, and though there seem to be a decent amount of collections holding them, this could be a few ageing individuals, as I've not heard of any fossa births ever! Hopefully, this will be rectified soon as fossa are a fascinating and beautiful species, and it would be a shame to lose them from british zoos. 

Durrell Wildlife trust's conservation in Madagascar has helped preserve areas of rainforest (especially in the Kindry forest) which is perfect Fossa habitat, so despite increasing deforistation and population growth on Madagascar, the Fossa may have some future in the wild.