Ankarana Reserve is located in the north of the island of Madagascar and about 108 km south of Antsiranana (Diego Suarez). It is a partially vegetated plateau in the north of Madagascar with about 290 meters high elevations above the sea level. The protected area status of this is that it is considered to be a special reserve.
Ankarana Reserve in general is well-known for its karst pinnacles of limestone called tsingy, which are believed to be around 150-year old Jurassic limestone. The topography of the region can be described to be karst, which owns the credit of creating tsingys which are large platforms of limestone. These were formed due to the heavy erosion by the rain water. The continuous rain water has carved intricate landscapes from the gigantic limestone massifs, which are sure to be breath taking.
The Ankarana reserve consists of some of the spectacular tsingys connecting Diego Suarez with Ambanja, where there are deep and vast caves that run for about 120 kilometres, along with the deep sinkholes and canyons, which definitely categorizes this reserve as compared to others. Some portion of the Ankarana reserve named Malagasy, meaning ‘a place with sharp rocks’, where the rocks give way to the rain forests that contain very many species of chameleons that are expert in changing their skin color, ranging from the short-horned chameleons to the excellently colored panther chameleons. The local Ankarana people consider the giant massifs to be very sacred as they believe that most of the kings who ruled them were buried in those caves.
Another major highlight of the Ankarana reserve fauna is the lemurs, which are friendly mammals resembling the looks of half cat and half squirrel. There are over 100 species of this animal including the crowned lemur, Perrier’s black lemur, northern sportive lemur, the dwarf lemur and many more. There are also over 96 bird species, 14 bat species and around 60 species of amphibians and reptiles. Anyways, a visitor to the Ankarana reserve is sure to lose himself in a truly memorable experience, gasping in total amazement!