Book excerpt: In the forests of Madagascar, about nine-tenths of the plant and animal species are unique to the island. Their natural habitats range from true rainforest to the lunar landscape of the spiny desert, and the natural rock-gardens of the mountain tops. Madagascar is no oceanic island, but a fragment of continent a thousand miles long, wrenched loose from the side of Africa. In this Lost World, plants and animals have become a living museum of evolution. Aepornis, the largest bird which ever lived, became extinct on Madagascar in the last few hundred years. Many more Malagasy species are now following Aerpornis into extinction. This volume introduces Madagascar's unique fauna and flora to general readers - the first such handbook available in English, and the first book to combine articles by Malagasy, French, English and American scientists, writing in their own fields of expertise.