Thereby Hangs a Tail

In 2006, Keriann McGoogan, a twenty-five-year-old doctoral candidate in biological anthropology at the University of Toronto, led an expedition into the wilds of Madagascar. She undertook the journey to study lemurs, among the world’s most endangered primates, but her trip spiralled into a maelstrom of disease and political machinations, punctuated by masochistic hikes, traveller’s diarrhea, and one nasty evacuation. These calamities, and more, are retold in her engaging account of the trip, Chasing Lemurs. Readers unfamiliar with lemurs — or those whose knowledge of them derives entirely from the children’s TV show Zoboomafoo — will find a lot to chew on.

Owing to its eighty-eight-million-year separation from other land masses, Madagascar houses more endemic species than any other country. These include several hundred unique birds and reptiles and some 11,000 vascular...