The subsistence-shift hypothesis argues that humans in this biogeographic region switched from foraging to agriculture, causing megafaunal decline. George Simpson used this region to illustrate the importance of stochastic dispersal in his sweepstakes model. Anne Yoder showed that all four terrestrial mammal orders found in this region arrived there via a single Cenozoic colonization event. A Late-Cretaceous sandstone formation in this region contains the fossils of the first confirmed cannibalistic dinosaur, Majungasaurus, and fossils of the largest known frog, Beelzebufo ampinga. The idea that Gondwanan vicariance drove ratite evolution was refuted by the discovery that New Zealand’s kiwi is the sister taxon of this region’s extinct elephant bird. Most of the world’s chameleons are endemic to this island. For 10 points, name this biodiverse island home to the indri, aye-aye, and ring-tailed lemur. ■END■
ANSWER: Madagascar [or Madagasikara] (The mammalian orders are primates, rodents, carnivorans, and afrosoricids.)
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