The Animal Kingdom Just Got Bigger: Biologists Stumble upon Two New Mammals
by Rebecca Hirsch | Today's Science, July 2005
© 2005 Today's Science
Two teams of scientists, working independently in the remote mountain rain forests of southern Tanzania, have discovered a new species of monkey, the first new African primate in 21 years. Other researchers working in Southeast Asia have discovered a new species of rodent for sale at a food market. That finding marks the first creation of a new mammalian family in 31 years.
The monkey discovery occurred when two different teams of scientists spotted the animal in the wild. Researchers have dubbed it the highland mangabey, or Lophocebus kipunji. The animal joins approximately 90 other known species of monkey in Africa.
The highland mangabey has an unusual appearance. It has a black face and long whiskers with a spiky crest of brown hair on its head. It has a thick brown coat and off-white belly and tail. The animal is about 90 cm (3 feet) long from head to rump with a long tail. The highland mangabey lives in the rain forest canopy 150 feet off the ground. The monkeys are highly secretive. They travel in groups of 15 to 20 and scatter if they are scared.
The monkey’s secretive nature may help explain why it has remained unknown to science until now. Dr. Tim Davenport and colleagues at the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society first heard about the monkey in 2003 from villagers living around Mount Rungwe in Tanzania’s southern highlands. Locals told the researchers about a shy and strange-looking forest-dwelling monkey they called kipunji.
“But the villagers have so many spirit animals that we took little notice at first,” Davenport told the San Francisco Chronicle, “until we realized they might be real, because some farmers told us how they trapped and killed the different-looking monkeys that raided their crops.”
Davenport’s team looked for the monkey around the villages and in the dense forests on Mount Rungwe. The team spotted the unusual-looking monkey several times, but were unable to get a close look at it because the monkey quickly hid among the leaves. Researchers finally got a close sighting in December 2003. At that time they realized they were seeing a new species.
Davenport said it was the animal’s unusual call that definitively established it as something new. Other mangabeys have a call that sounds like “whoop gobble,” but this monkey made a loud “honk bark” sound.
Davenport’s team had not yet gone public with its findings when, in a remarkable coincidence, a second team of researchers working in a different mountain range stumbled upon another group of highland mangabeys just months later. Biologist Trevor
Jones and his colleagues had been in the Ndundulu Forest Reserve studying another rare monkey, the Sanje mangabey, when they spotted the highland mangabey.
Jones told The San Francisco Chronicle, “Then last July 7—I’ll never forget the day— we were surveying biodiversity in the forest, and one of our team suddenly grabbed me and pointed to a monkey in a tree 100 meters away. I grabbed my binoculars and nearly fell over. It was a very surreal moment, and I simply stood there in disbelief. I knew it was a new species.”
The two teams learned of each other’s work in October 2004 when Davenport happened to be in the same hotel as one of Jones’s colleagues. A conversation between the two researchers escalated to revelations about the monkey, and both teams realized they had discovered the same animal. The two teams decided to collaborate. They published their discoveries jointly in the journal Science.
Researchers say the monkeys are rare and threatened. Scientists guess there are between 300 and 1,000 individuals left from what once must have been a thriving population. “I would say that habitat loss is probably the major contributing factor,” Davenport told Nature. The researchers are recommending that the monkey be listed as an endangered species, meaning it is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.
Scientists are calling for greater protection of the Tanzanian forests that make up the monkey’s fragmented habitat. While the Ndundulo forest is in excellent condition, the Rungwe forest is highly threatened by illegal logging, and the narrow forested corridors that once linked these areas are degraded. Because the highland mangabey requires forests to move around and thrive, scientists say the two subpopulations of monkeys may already be isolated from each other.
Meanwhile, the discovery of a new species of rodent in southeast Asia has created a stir in the scientific community. Biologist Robert Timmins of the Wildlife Conservation Society discovered the new rodent when he spotted it being sold as meat at a food market. “It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables,” Timmins told New Scientist. “and I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before.”
The people of Laos call the animal kha-nyou, or rock rat, and like to roast it whole on a skewer. “You then eat them, crunching up the smaller bones and spitting out the larger ones,” Timmins told National Geographic. “Rats, squirrels, and porcupines are an everyday food item, so the kha-nyou fits right in.”
Timmins bought two of the animals for a few cents. He and his colleagues soon obtained other animals from hunters and recovered bone fragments from owl pellets. They sent specimens to the Natural History Museum in London where scientists studied the animal’s bone structure. Other scientists at the University of Vermont performed analysis of the animal’s DNA (the chemical substance that carries genetic information, which determines the form and functioning of all living things). By studying the animal’s DNA and skeletal structure, researchers were able to compare the new species to other rodents. They reported their findings in the journal Systematics and Biodiversity.
Scientists call the new species Laonastes aenigmamus. The animal looks like a cross between a rat and a squirrel, but it is actually not closely related to either. It has long whiskers, a thick tail not quite as furry as a squirrel’s, and stubby legs with large paws. It measures about 40 centimeters (16 inches) from nose to tail.
Discoveries of new species of rodents occur about once a year, but what makes Laonastes aenigmamus remarkable is that it is quite different from other known rodents. In fact, the animal is so unique that scientists had to create a new genus and family to make room for it in the animal kingdom. Researchers say the rodent last shared a common ancestor with other rodents many millions of years ago. Timmins told National Geographic, “Nobody could have predicted this new family.”
Scientists believe the animal is a nocturnal plant eater that lives on rocky limestone outcroppings in central Laos. Researchers have yet to observe the animal alive, so they don’t yet know how widespread it is, or whether it should be classified as endangered.
“To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary,” Timmins told Scientific American. “It is an indication of how little we know and a window onto what we could be losing without ever knowing.”
© Today's Science, 2005
© 2005 Today's Science
Two teams of scientists, working independently in the remote mountain rain forests of southern Tanzania, have discovered a new species of monkey, the first new African primate in 21 years. Other researchers working in Southeast Asia have discovered a new species of rodent for sale at a food market. That finding marks the first creation of a new mammalian family in 31 years.
The monkey discovery occurred when two different teams of scientists spotted the animal in the wild. Researchers have dubbed it the highland mangabey, or Lophocebus kipunji. The animal joins approximately 90 other known species of monkey in Africa.
The highland mangabey has an unusual appearance. It has a black face and long whiskers with a spiky crest of brown hair on its head. It has a thick brown coat and off-white belly and tail. The animal is about 90 cm (3 feet) long from head to rump with a long tail. The highland mangabey lives in the rain forest canopy 150 feet off the ground. The monkeys are highly secretive. They travel in groups of 15 to 20 and scatter if they are scared.
The monkey’s secretive nature may help explain why it has remained unknown to science until now. Dr. Tim Davenport and colleagues at the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society first heard about the monkey in 2003 from villagers living around Mount Rungwe in Tanzania’s southern highlands. Locals told the researchers about a shy and strange-looking forest-dwelling monkey they called kipunji.
“But the villagers have so many spirit animals that we took little notice at first,” Davenport told the San Francisco Chronicle, “until we realized they might be real, because some farmers told us how they trapped and killed the different-looking monkeys that raided their crops.”
Davenport’s team looked for the monkey around the villages and in the dense forests on Mount Rungwe. The team spotted the unusual-looking monkey several times, but were unable to get a close look at it because the monkey quickly hid among the leaves. Researchers finally got a close sighting in December 2003. At that time they realized they were seeing a new species.
Davenport said it was the animal’s unusual call that definitively established it as something new. Other mangabeys have a call that sounds like “whoop gobble,” but this monkey made a loud “honk bark” sound.
Davenport’s team had not yet gone public with its findings when, in a remarkable coincidence, a second team of researchers working in a different mountain range stumbled upon another group of highland mangabeys just months later. Biologist Trevor
Jones and his colleagues had been in the Ndundulu Forest Reserve studying another rare monkey, the Sanje mangabey, when they spotted the highland mangabey.
Jones told The San Francisco Chronicle, “Then last July 7—I’ll never forget the day— we were surveying biodiversity in the forest, and one of our team suddenly grabbed me and pointed to a monkey in a tree 100 meters away. I grabbed my binoculars and nearly fell over. It was a very surreal moment, and I simply stood there in disbelief. I knew it was a new species.”
The two teams learned of each other’s work in October 2004 when Davenport happened to be in the same hotel as one of Jones’s colleagues. A conversation between the two researchers escalated to revelations about the monkey, and both teams realized they had discovered the same animal. The two teams decided to collaborate. They published their discoveries jointly in the journal Science.
Researchers say the monkeys are rare and threatened. Scientists guess there are between 300 and 1,000 individuals left from what once must have been a thriving population. “I would say that habitat loss is probably the major contributing factor,” Davenport told Nature. The researchers are recommending that the monkey be listed as an endangered species, meaning it is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.
Scientists are calling for greater protection of the Tanzanian forests that make up the monkey’s fragmented habitat. While the Ndundulo forest is in excellent condition, the Rungwe forest is highly threatened by illegal logging, and the narrow forested corridors that once linked these areas are degraded. Because the highland mangabey requires forests to move around and thrive, scientists say the two subpopulations of monkeys may already be isolated from each other.
Meanwhile, the discovery of a new species of rodent in southeast Asia has created a stir in the scientific community. Biologist Robert Timmins of the Wildlife Conservation Society discovered the new rodent when he spotted it being sold as meat at a food market. “It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables,” Timmins told New Scientist. “and I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before.”
The people of Laos call the animal kha-nyou, or rock rat, and like to roast it whole on a skewer. “You then eat them, crunching up the smaller bones and spitting out the larger ones,” Timmins told National Geographic. “Rats, squirrels, and porcupines are an everyday food item, so the kha-nyou fits right in.”
Timmins bought two of the animals for a few cents. He and his colleagues soon obtained other animals from hunters and recovered bone fragments from owl pellets. They sent specimens to the Natural History Museum in London where scientists studied the animal’s bone structure. Other scientists at the University of Vermont performed analysis of the animal’s DNA (the chemical substance that carries genetic information, which determines the form and functioning of all living things). By studying the animal’s DNA and skeletal structure, researchers were able to compare the new species to other rodents. They reported their findings in the journal Systematics and Biodiversity.
Scientists call the new species Laonastes aenigmamus. The animal looks like a cross between a rat and a squirrel, but it is actually not closely related to either. It has long whiskers, a thick tail not quite as furry as a squirrel’s, and stubby legs with large paws. It measures about 40 centimeters (16 inches) from nose to tail.
Discoveries of new species of rodents occur about once a year, but what makes Laonastes aenigmamus remarkable is that it is quite different from other known rodents. In fact, the animal is so unique that scientists had to create a new genus and family to make room for it in the animal kingdom. Researchers say the rodent last shared a common ancestor with other rodents many millions of years ago. Timmins told National Geographic, “Nobody could have predicted this new family.”
Scientists believe the animal is a nocturnal plant eater that lives on rocky limestone outcroppings in central Laos. Researchers have yet to observe the animal alive, so they don’t yet know how widespread it is, or whether it should be classified as endangered.
“To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary,” Timmins told Scientific American. “It is an indication of how little we know and a window onto what we could be losing without ever knowing.”
© Today's Science, 2005
