OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — This week's Zach at the Zoo takes us to Expedition Madagascar to learn more about the fossa – the top predator native to Madagascar.
- Two fossa call Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium – Charlie and Red.
- Fossa love to hunt and eat lemurs.
- VIDEO: We visit Charlie during feeding time.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
“Oh he’s being quite handsome for you I think,” Supervisor for Expedition Madagascar Wendy Hirniak said.
I replied, “He knows it’s his time to shine, huh?”
She said, “It’s his time to shine.”
Believe it or not – this handsome fella is the top predator in Madagascar.
“This is Charlie the fossa.”
So what exactly is a fossa?
"It’s so funny that you say it looks like a cat because it does. But guess what, Zach? Not a cat. Not a cat at all,” Hirniak explained.
“They are in their own cool, little family. The closest relatives are the mongoose, the civets, the otters, the ferrets.”
Being at the top of the food chain makes their menu vast but, like us, they do have their favorites.
“These guys main food is the lemur. They love to eat many different things like reptiles, other small mammals, and birds," Hirniak said. "But the lemur is like something they truly love.”
Charlie is not alone in Omaha. He has a girlfriend named Red. Both are 16 years old.
“Well, fossa are very solitary. They actually live on their own and only come together to breed,” Hirniak said.
“They are both living retirement life. She is post-reproductive. SO they actually share this exhibit but at different times. So he’s out this morning and red will come out this afternoon.”
In fact – the two are grandparents now! But Charlie had it easier than males in the wild.
“The female will find a tree that she likes to climb into and will sit there and call out to males…. Males at the bottom competing to breed with her… but it is said she will pick a few males to breed with that are lucky.”
Fossa are very secretive and elusive – making it difficult to learn more about them or get a count on the number remaining in their natural habitat.
However, deforestation has been a concern for many of Madagascar's animals.
“Madagascar used to be covered 80 percent in rainforest and now only ten percent is left," she said. "So that’s the big thing going on over there.”
The zoo has helped plant 7 million trees there to combat the problem.
You can meet Charlie and Red for yourself at Expedition Madagascar
