Ravitoto- Joanna Langner

 Ravitoto!
A specialty in Madagascar is Ravitoto. It is pork served with shredded cassava leaves.
People describe Madagascar as having a love affair with this meal.  Cassava is a staple food in Madagascar because it is resilient even in poor soil, and you can buy it at almost any market.
Ravitoto is known as a comfort food in Madagascar. The pounded cassava leaves are boil with meat in oil and water, and served with a big bowl of rice. Sometimes they add coconut water or peanuts! It is usually served steaming hot and look similar to cut up grass. It is a dish people remember their mother making for them, and is loved nationwide.
Places to eat it: Mahajanga, Antananarivo, Antsirabe, Morondava, and Ile Sainte Marie.


Here is a video on how to make it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGFMotcvuQ
Another Recipe:

INGREDIENTSNutrition

YIELD1 Huge BatchUNITSUS

• 6 ¹⁄₂lbs meat (if beef with fat, if zebu add small tip of the bump)
• 2 ¹⁄₄lbs greens (Anamalaho, Acmella oleracea - 2 big boots)
• 2 ¹⁄₄lbs malabar spinach (anamamy, malabar spinach, again 2 big boots)
• 2 ¹⁄₄lbs greens (anadrano, cress)
• 5tomatoes
• 2 ¹⁄₄lbs onions
• 1gingerroot
• 2bell peppers, big and hot
• 1green pepper, cool
• 6garlic cloves
• 3tablespoons pan drippings (duck or goose are called for.....wing it)

• salt

DIRECTIONS

1.   Arm yourselves with patience to sort out the greens. Only use the leaves, remove all branches. It is good to wash them. Pay attention to how many flowers are included. 50 to 60 are sufficient, throw the rest and branches to the ducks or rabbits.

2.   Wash the meat. Cut to 8 inch pieces.

3.   Shred the onions.

4.   Peel the ginger and cut in small pieces.

5.   Peel the garlic and cut in pieces.

6.   Cut the tomatoes in dice.

7.   In a large pot (3+ gallons) heat the grease. Throw in the onions. Add ginger, tomatoes, green pepper, salt and pepper. Let cook 10 minutes.

8.   Add 1.5 gallons of water and bring to a boil on a big fire, covered pot.

9.   When it boils to soup, introduce the greens.

10.       If the greens won't go in, add some and as the volume decreases add more.

11.       Let it boil about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

12.       It is ready.

13.       Serve with a great deal of cooked rice. Drown the rice under the soup and leaves.

 Joanna Langner

Review of Fossa - Joanna Langner

Review of Fossa:

                Fossa are amazingly unique creatures! Since I just did my presentation I thought it would be great to do a small review!

                In terms of taxonomy the Fossa are descended from/ most closely related to the mongoose. In terms of convergent evolution the fossa have feline and canine features, and have tails much like a monkey, which are analogous structures. In terms of divergent evolution, fossa have homologous structures that are similar to the mongoose, which can be seen when looking at their skeletons.

                All of the Malagasy carnivores are thought to have evolved from a single ancestor that colonized Madagascar from mainland Africa, 18-24 million years ago.  Fossil reveal that there used to be a larger type of fossa that existed that was estimated to be 17 kg and 6 m long.

                The classification is Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Carnivora, Eupleridae, Cryptoprocta, cryptoprocta ferox. The Fossa do have a relationship with humans however is it slightly negative. Because the fossa have been losing their living spaces, they have been forced to start inhabiting areas where humans live. Here, the fossa are hunted by farmers who want to protect their livestock from the fossa. Humans have also introduced dogs into Madagascar, which have brought unfamiliar diseases like rabies. People are working to raise the awareness of how important the fossa are, and that they should be protected.

                Fossa are carnivores and eat mainly lemurs, tenrecs, and small rodents. They sometime shunt in pairs (2 fossa form the same litter). Hunting in parties is a developed sociality, yet fossa that are born alone in their litter still hunt alone. They are active both during the day and the night.

                They mate during September and October, with a very unique mating ritual where they have the males fight at the bottom of the tree, with the females at the top for about a week.

These animals are amazing and very special to Madagascar! (Both the movie and the country!).  

-       Joanna Langner

Lemurs Really ARE Important! - Joanna Langner

News:

I read the article “Lemur Extinctions Are Harmful to Madagascar’s Plant Life, too” and I learned that there are plants are trees that rely on a specific species of lemurs to spread their seeds for the diversity of the forest. Lemurs are extremely important to the ecosystem of Madagascar, this article stressing the important of fruit eating lemurs.

Being the unique and amazing animals lemurs are, they eat plants and fruits are poop out the seeds all over the forest. Here, lemurs are taking over the role that birds usually hold in most environments.

According to this article, at least 17 types of lemurs have become extinct. The reasons are due to a loss of habitat from the expansion of agriculture areas for palm oil and other products. A term that I had never heard that is used to describe plant that do not have seed dispenser is “orphaned” which is exactly what is happening to some plant species in Madagascar. The plant called Canarium is what is having the largest issue with this, and now has to bet on strong winds and other animals being its main dispersers.

Researcher say that this issue could grow to other species and could happen in other country, becoming a much larger problem. It is amazing to me how important each species is in an ecosystem, so matter how small or large.

Article: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lemur-extinctions-are-harmful-madagascars-plant-life-too-180958717/

-      - Joanna Langner

Vanilla in Madagascar - Michaela

Turns out that vanilla isn't such a "vanilla" topic in Mada, as you might imagine. Apparently a few decades ago, the price of vanilla beans dropped drastically, so global production largely slowed. Now there's a bit of a conundrum, as demand for vanilla has wildly increased as a result of companies like Nestle and Whole Foods wanting to use more "natural" (whatever that means) products in their food. Now Mada, which apparently produces half (!!) the world's vanilla beans, is trying to meet that demand. Unfortunately, that seems to be because vanilla farmers are paid roughly $1.50 a day, instead of $10.00, which is the global average. In order to try to meet this increase in demand, farmers in Mada are harvesting earlier and packaging the beans - evidently this is akin to picking grapes for wine way before they're ready. The plot thickens, as there's a black market for green vanilla beans! There are people using money that they got from illegal money to buy green vanilla beans and sell as a legal mechanism to make money - indeed, this is money laundering. Now Mada is blocking exports of green vanilla beans!

Check it out here:
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/madagascar-moves-to-protect-its-vanilla-market/

The Inextricable Plant Animal Relationship Unique to Madagascar: Ashley

The Inextricable Plant Animal Relationship Unique to Madagascar - Ashley Jowell

My blog post this week is based on the relationship between lemurs and Malagasy Plant Life. A recent Smithsonian Article has released terribly upsetting news: the article, titled “Lemur Extinctions Are Harmful to Madagascar’s Plant Life Too,” discuss esthe impact that a lowering lemur population has on Malagasy plants. 

In this article, readers learn about Yale University’s Sarah Federemen who recently conducted a study documenting the “seed dispersing ability” of Malagasy lemurs - essentially, she found the following information: while many plants in ecosystems across the globe have birds as the primary disperser of plant seeds, many malagasy plants are dispersed for reproduction by unique lemurs'. Unfortunately, anthropogenic activity has recently led to the extinction of at least 17 Malagasy lemur species, according to this article; this has drastic effects on consequent “orphan” plants that no longer have animal seed dispersers to allow them to reproduce! Therefore, these orphan plants rely on less effective  “secondary” dispersers to lemurs, such as wind and rodents, and are at the risk of extinction themselves since they are unable to as effectively reproduce.

This article points to the dramatic effect that keystone species, such as lemurs, has on  their surrounding ecosystem. It highlights the inextricable relationship between organisms and their environment, and the tremendous impact that humans have on their environment themselves. While some people think it might be ‘silly’’ to try and save a species, this article contradicts this idea by demonstrating how the loss of one species influences the entire environment at large. 

Source Article: 

Lemur Extinctions Are Harmful to Madagascar's Plant Life, Too

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lemur-extinctions-are-harmful-madagascars-plant-life-too-180958717/?no-ist 

Lemur extinctions in Madagascar leave behind doomed orphan trees - Dylan

What a wonderfully sensational headline from New Scientist!

Basically, lemurs eat fruit in trees and disseminate the seeds via their droppings. As lemurs die off, they leave species of "doomed orphan trees" with no animal to propagate the seeds. Lots of the lemur species that have gone extinct (e.g. the koala lemur) were much larger than the remaining lemurs, so they were able to eat larger fruits. Now, the smaller lemurs may not be able to eat the large fruits of certain tree species, so those trees are "doomed" or depending precariously on the two largest surviving lemur species (the black and white ruffed lemur and the red ruffed lemur), both of which are critically endangered and crucial to the long-term survival of many tree species. Sarah Federman from Yale predicts a "cascade of extinction" if the lemurs go extinct.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2083800-lemur-extinctions-in-madagascar-leave-behind-doomed-orphan-trees/

This is big news right now, y'all. Here are a couple of other articles covering the same thing.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lemur-extinctions-are-harmful-madagascars-plant-life-too-180958717/?no-ist

http://news.yale.edu/2016/04/11/lemur-extinctions-orphaned-some-madagascar-plant-species