The sifaka lemur lives on the island of Mada

Africatales.org
maro
Maro (MAH-roo) is a sifaka lemur from the country of
Madagascar. Her name is short for Marojejy (mah-rooJEH-jee), a national park that is home to many types of
lemurs. Sifaka lemurs are also called “dancing lemurs,”
and Maro loves all sorts of music and dancing. She
likes to laugh and tell jokes. She wears a necklace of
colored beads that tell the story of salvation.
(Maro has three brothers, Philibert (fee-lee-BEHR), Francois
(fran-SWAH) and Toulouse (too-LOOZ), and a sister, Jejy
(JEH-jee), who are introduced in the story Children in Need.
They have no parents and Maro, as the eldest, runs the
household.)
The sifaka lemur lives on the island of Madagascar. There are 99 different kinds of lemurs,
and the only place in the world to find them
is Madagascar. Sifaka lemurs are also called
“dancing lemurs” because when they are on
the ground, they hop from place to place. They
are white, with black faces, hands and feet and
a reddish-brown color all down the front. They
look sort of like monkeys, but they are not.
They use their tails for balance, like squirrels,
not for holding on to things, like monkeys do.
When they are not hopping around in the trees
or looking for
food, they like
to lie out on
branches or
on the ground
and sunbathe.
The name “lemur” comes
from the
Latin word for
“ghost”. People used to be
frightened of
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them because
of their glowing
eyes and the
scary noises
they make at
night.
Madagascar (ma-duh-GAS-car) is an island
off the east coast of Africa. The capital city of
Madagascar is Antananarivo (ahn-tah-nahnah-REE-voh). Most of the people in Madagascar speak a language called Malagasy
(maa-lah-GAS-ee), although French is also
popular. The main religion in Madagascar is
traditional tribal worship, but there are some
Christians there as well. Madagascar is a
small island, but it is very diverse—there are
rainforests, grasslands, forests and deserts
all on the same island. There are also many
exotic plants and animals here—eighty-five
percent of them are not found anywhere else
in the world! The currency in Madagascar is
called the ariary.