Watching indri in the wild is one of the definitive Madagascar experiences. These are Madagascar's largest living lemurs — black and white, almost bearlike in build, with vestigial tails and long hind legs designed for clinging and leaping between vertical trunks. A large male weighs around seven kilograms. They live in monogamous family groups of two to five animals, occupying home territories in the mid-altitude rainforest.
The best time to find them is early morning, when families emerge to sun themselves in the canopy and exchange long howling calls with neighbouring groups. Guides in the Analamazoatra Reserve know which family groups are habituated to visitors, and can generally guarantee a sighting. You will typically stand under a tree while two or three indri stare down at you from fifteen metres, occasionally launching across gaps between trunks in powerful, upright leaps. They are entirely protected — the species cannot survive in captivity and no breeding programme exists outside Madagascar.