The Îles de la Madeleine () lie west of

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The Departments of Senegal, department of Dakar has a population of 1,278,469, and the population of the Dakar metropolitan area was at 4.0 mill ...

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

. The

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

s are uninhabited. The main island is Sarpan, known for its

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended b ...

tool finds. The islands are also known for their

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

and

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

life. The cliffs are steep, and had been carved by the sea over millions of years. Îles de la Madeleine National Park (French: ''Parc national des Îles de la Madeleine'') is one of the smallest

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

s in the world.Magdalen Islands (Iles de la Madeleine) in Senegal
Protected Planet.

Îles de la Madeleine National Park

At just , ''Le Parc National des Îles de la Madeleine'' is the smallest national park in the world, and a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

Tentative List site. (''Île aux Serpents''), the largest of the islands, is home to breeding colonies of red-billed tropicbird, white-breasted cormorant, and bridled tern.

Tree

When French naturalist

Michel Adanson Michel Adanson (7 April 17273 August 1806) was an 18th-century French botanist and naturalist who traveled to Senegal to study flora and fauna. He proposed a "natural system" of taxonomy distinct from the binomial system forwarded by Linnaeus. ...

explored the islands in 1749, he claimed to have found a

baobab ''Adansonia'' is a genus of medium-to-large deciduous trees known as baobabs ( or ). The eight species of ''Adansonia'' are native to Africa, Australia, and Madagascar but have also been introduced to other regions of the world, including Barb ...

that was in diameter, which bore the carvings of passing mariners on its trunk, including those of

Prince Henry the Navigator Princy Henry of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''Infante Dom (title), Dom Henrique''; 4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator (), was a Infante of Portugal, Portuguese prince and a ...

in 1444 and

André Thevet André Thevet (; ; 1516 – 23 November 1590) was a French Franciscan priest, explorer, cosmographer and writer who travelled to the Near East and South America. His most significant book was ''The New Found World, or Antarctike'', which comp ...

in 1555.Wickens, Gerald E.; Lowe, Pat (2008). The baobabs pachycauls of Africa, Madagascar and Australia. New York: Springer Science + Business Media, B.V. pp. 31–. ISBN 9781402064319. From this he concluded that the species was extraordinarily long-lived. When Théodore Monod searched the island in the 20th century, this tree was not to be found.

References

Madeleine National parks of Senegal Historic sites in Senegal World Heritage Tentative List {{Africa-protected-area-stub

Îles de la Madeleine National Park

Tree

See also

References