History of Madagascar
Europe knew of Madagascar through Arab sources; based on them "The Travels of Marco Polo" claimed that "the inhabitants are Saracens, or followers of the law of Mohammed", without mentioning other inhabitants. Other than its size and location, everything about the island in the book describes southeastern Africa, not Madagascar. European contact began on 10 August 1500, when the Portuguese sea captain Diogo Dias sighted the island after his ship separated from a fleet going to India. The Portuguese continued trading with the islanders and named the island "São Lourenço" (Saint Lawrence). In 1666, François Caron, the director general of the newly formed French East India Company, sailed to Madagascar. The company failed to establish a colony on Madagascar but established ports on the nearby islands of Bourbon (now Réunion) and Isle de France (now Mauritius). In the late 17th century, the French established trading posts along the east coast. On Île Sainte-Marie, a small island off the northeastern coast of Madagascar, Captain Misson and his pirate crew allegedly founded the famous pirate utopia of Libertatia in the late 17th century. From about 1774 to 1824, Madagascar was a favorite haunt for pirates. Many European sailors were shipwrecked on the coasts of the island, among them Robert Drury, whose journal is one of the few written depictions of life in southern Madagascar during the 18th century. Sailors sometimes called Madagascar "Island of the Moon".
Miniopterus aelleni
In a 1995 contribution to "Faune de Madagascar" on Malagasy bats, Randolph Peterson and colleagues listed four species of "Miniopterus" on Madagascar and the nearby Comoros, including the small "Miniopterus manavi" with a broad distribution on both Madagascar and the Comoros. However, during the first decade of the 21st century, molecular studies have revealed that "Miniopterus", a widespread genus in the Old World, is much more species-rich than previously thought. A 2008 study comparing sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome "b" and D-loop markers found two distinct, unrelated groups within the supposed "M. manavi" from the Comoros; both groups were also found on Madagascar. The next year, Steven Goodman and colleagues revisited the group with more extensive sampling on Madagascar. They separated three species within the former ""M. manavi"": "M. manavi" itself in the Central Highlands, "M. griveaudi" (previously a subspecies of "M. manavi") on Anjouan, Grande Comore, and northern and western Madagascar, and the newly described "Miniopterus aelleni" on Anjouan and northern and western Madagascar. The specific name "aelleni" honors Prof. Villy Aellen of the Natural History Museum of Geneva, who has done much research on African bats. Within "M. aelleni", Goodman and colleagues found some differentiation (3.4% sequence divergence in cytochrome "b" sequences) between individuals from Montagne d'Ambre in northern Madagascar and those from Anjouan and Ankarana, near Montagne d'Ambre; the cytochrome "b" divergence between "M. aelleni" and other Malagasy "Miniopterus" is 7 to 10%.