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Fosa: King Of The Madagascar Jungle

WUNC | By Frank Stasio,
Andrew Tie
Published November 4, 2015 at 12:05 PM EST

A conversation with professor and fosa researcher Luke Dollar

In the jungles of Madagascar roams an endemic beast known as the fosa. It has the frame of a small cougar and head of a mongoose, hunting any animal with a heartbeat, including lemurs.

Though the fosa rests atop the food chain in Madagascar, slash and burn agriculture threaten the future of this already dwindling population.

Host Frank Stasio talks with Luke Dollar, professor of biology at Pfeiffer University and fosa researcher with National Geographic, about this Malagasy carnivore.

Dollar will speak at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh as part of the Extreme Mammals exhibit. 

The fosa has a long, slender body and a head similar to a mongoose but is the size of a small cougar.
Mike Fisher / Flickr Creative Commons
/
Flickr Creative Commons
The fosa has a long, slender body and a head similar to a mongoose but is the size of a small cougar.
Mathias Appel / Flickr Creative Commons
/
Flickr Creative Commons

Copyright 2015 North Carolina Public Radio
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio
Andrew Tie