continent hypothétique de l’océan Indien dont Madagascar et les îles de l’archipel des Mascareignes seraient les derniers vestiges.

Oceano Orientale (MARBR) ^

• Le zoologiste anglais Philip Sclater (1829-1913), dans un article au sein de la revue de la Société zoologique de Londres, The Quaterly Journal of Science, tente d’expliquer les coincidences zoologiques concernant Madagascar et le sud de l’Asie :

Conclude therefore, granted the hypothesis of derivative origin of species, the anomalies of the Mammal-fauna of Madagascar can best be explained by supposing that, anterior to the existence of Africa in its shape, a large continent occupied parts of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean stretching out towards (what is now) America on the West, and to India and its islands on the East ; that this continent was broken up into islands, of which some became amalgamated with the present continent of Africa and some possibly with what is now Asia, and that in Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands (Reunion, Maurice and Rodrigues) we have existing relics of the great continent, for which… I should propose the name Lemuria.

P. Sclater, The Mammals of Madagascar (1864).