Lemurs were the dominant life form on the planet and when the continents split up, Madagascar kind of sailed off then into what suddenly became the Indian Ocean and took with it a representative sample of the livestock of the area, which included a lot of lemurs. They sat there for millions and millions of years in glorious isolation, while in the rest of the world a new creature emerged that was much more intelligent than the lemurs, according to it, much more competitive, much more aggressive and incredibly interested in all the things you could do with twigs.

— Douglas Adams