'Something special is happening on Madagascar.' Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Lemurs first arrived on the island of Madagascar 53.2 million years ago, probably hitching a ride on a vegetation raft from mainland Africa. The island was predator free, and the lemurs evolved into an abundance of species to thrive in its various habitats--an expansion that hasn't stopped since. Scientists typically expect such rapid species growth to eventually slow down. However, in a study recently published in the journal a team of researchers presents evidence that lemurs defy this evolutionary principle.

Madagascar's critically endangered'singing' lemurs -- Indri indri -- have a natural ability to keep a beat, just like us humans do, a study has concluded. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the University of Turin studied the songs of indri in the rainforests of the island country. They found that the lemurs' strange, wailing songs have the same kinds of universal, categorical rhythms found across human musical cultures. Outside of humans, having rhythm is a rare trait in mammals -- although it can be found elsewhere in the animal kingdom, perhaps most notably in songbirds. Madagascar's critically endangered'singing' lemurs -- Indri indri -- have a natural ability to keep a beat, just like us humans do, a study has concluded.

The evolution of human vision can be traced back to the very first primates that evolved 55 million years ago, a study of a tiny mammal from Madagascar found. The world's smallest primate, the endangered grey mouse lemur, is no bigger than an apple and weighs in at just two ounces. Researchers from Switzerland said that, despite their diminutive size, the endangered grey mouse lemur's visual system is just as big as that of other primates. In fact, more than a fifth of the big-eyed mammal's brain is dedicated to visual processing -- as compared to barely three percent of the human brain. The find highlights this brain region's incredible preservation and importance to our daily lives -- and those of our ancestors in the distant past.