While staying at Le Palmarium Hotel & Reserve in Madagascar, Julia Hellweg was looking around the tortoise enclosure when she saw a tiny wild baby who wasn’t supposed to be in there.
“I noticed something moving in the enclosure and checked with my torch,”
Hellweg, founder of Aye-Aye Conservation Project, told The Dodo. “Then I saw that it was a tiny common tenrec.”
Tenrecs look similar to hedgehogs but aren’t related and are common in Madagascar. While they can leave their moms and become independent as early as 3 to 4 weeks, Hellweg could see that this baby was even younger than that. At first she thought he was a striped tenrec, as both species have stripes when they’re babies, but quickly realized her mistake.
“I asked the nature guides if it was normal to find a tenrec inside the tortoise pen,” Hellweg said. “They said it was not common at all and it was unusual that he was all alone at that size, because they usually move in big groups.”
Hellweg checked the entire area looking for other babies or a mom, using her thermal camera to see better in the dark, but unfortunately came up empty. The little guy was all alone, and Hellweg knew that without his family, he wouldn’t survive.
Hellweg got a large box, filled it with sand and leaves and poked holes in the lid. She carefully placed the baby, whom she named Mr. T, inside, then began digging for earthworms for his dinner.
“He had a big tick on his left side that I removed, but otherwise he was in a very good condition,” Hellweg said. “He was just tiny.”
After eight days in Hellweg’s care, Mr T was ready to be released back into the reserve where the hotel was located. Hellweg asked one of the nature guides to help her choose the perfect spot, somewhere where the earth was nice and moist for finding worms.
“Tenrecs communicate a lot and we are all very positive that he has found his family again,” Hellweg said. “He quickly wandered off into the bushes and disappeared.”
While the whole experience was unexpected, Hellweg is so glad she was able to help Mr. T and is confident that he’s now back with his family and thriving.
