List of mammals of Madagascar
[note 4] This endemic terrestrial fauna, consisting of lemurs, tenrecs, nesomyine rodents and euplerid carnivorans, is thought to have colonized the island from Africa via four (or five, if aye-ayes arrived separately) rafting events.
The other historic terrestrial or semiterrestrial mammal group, the extinct hippopotamuses, is thought to have colonized the island possibly several times, perhaps via swimming.
Earlier in the Holocene, Madagascar had a number of megafaunal mammals: giant lemurs such as Archaeoindris which at over 200 kg was comparable in mass to the largest gorillas, as well as the hippopotamuses.
[8][9][note 6] Today, the largest surviving native mammals of the island, such as the indri[11] and fossa,[12] have weights only approaching 10 kg.
The following tags are used to highlight each species' conservation status as assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature; those on the left are used here, those in the second column in some other articles: The afrotherian order Afrosoricida contains the golden moles and otter shrews of sub-Saharan Africa and the tenrecs of Madagascar, families of small mammals that were traditionally part of the order Insectivora.
Morphological analyses have tended to place them within Afrotheria close to aardvarks (order Tubulidentata),[18] perhaps due to convergent specializations for digging.
A number of lemur species larger than any now alive, ranging in size up to that of a gorilla, are believed to have become extinct shortly after the recent arrival of humans.
It has been proposed that a common ancestor of all Madagascar's lemurs rafted across the Mozambique Channel from Africa[23][24][note 7] between 50 and 60 million years ago.
All the native nesomyid rodents of Madagascar are believed to descend from a common ancestor that rafted over from Africa 20–24 million years ago.
The native terrestrial carnivorans of Madagascar are all euplerids, which are believed to descend from a common ancestor that rafted over from Africa 19–26 million years ago.
Madagascar's only native artiodactyls are the extinct Malagasy hippos, which are believed to have descended from ancestors that managed to cross the Mozambique Channel from Africa in the late Quaternary, perhaps by swimming.
They are the mammals most fully adapted to aquatic life with a spindle-shaped nearly hairless body, protected by a thick layer of blubber, and forelimbs and tail modified to provide propulsion underwater.
