Producing the spider silk—the only example of its kind displayed anywhere in the world—involved the efforts of 70 people who collected spiders daily from webs on telephone wires, using long poles. A unique piece of golden yellow silk brocade cloth, woven from spiderwebs, is on display at the Museum of Natural History in New York. To harvest enough silk to make the cloth, more than a million female golden orb spiders were collected in Madagascar, "milked" for silk, and released back into the wild. The golden spider silk was woven by Malagasy artisans into lamba Akotifahana, a type of brocade that is traditionally reserved for the aristocracy; the entire process took 4 years. [more inside]
posted by Quietgal on Oct 5, 2009 - 88 comments

Malagasy Gangsta
posted by pwedza on Feb 11, 2007 - 15 comments

Salegy is Malagasy pop music. Upbeat and lively. Sometimes dramatic. Jaojoby is the legend and Wawa are the young guns!
posted by pwedza on Nov 24, 2006 - 8 comments

They are not the prettiest creature's around. More information and links here. The aye-aye is endangered mainly because Malagasy regard them as unlucky and kill them on sight. [more inside]
posted by tellurian on Jun 11, 2006 - 37 comments