Two new rare lemur species join primate club

Two new rare lemur species join primate club - Scientists Tuesday made a rare live addition to the order of primates, unveiling two new species of mouse lemur -- tiny, big-eyed animals that inhabit the forests of Madagascar.

The find brings to 20 the known tally of mouse lemurs, nocturnal tree-dwellers that weigh less than a large apple.

Yet even as the two minute animals were recorded in the book of life, the scientists warned that one of them was teetering on the brink of extinction.

AFP/GERMAN PRIMATE CENTER/AFP/File - Image taken by the German Primate Center on March 20, 2013 shows a Microcebus marohita, one of two new species of mouse lemur that inhabits Madagascar. The find brings to 20 the known tally of mouse lemurs, nocturnal tree-dwellers that weigh less than a large apple

Primates are the well-studied family of mammals that includes humans, apes and monkeys, and the addition of new, living species to the list is rare.

Biologists from the United States, Germany and Madagascar compared DNA, body mass and length, skull and tooth size and coat colouring to declare Microcebus marohita and Microcebus tanosi to be separate species and to usher them into clan of mouse lemurs.

With a body length of about 13.5 centimetres (5.3 inches) M. marohita is now the largest of the known mouse lemurs. Adding its bushy tail, it is all of 28 cm (11.2 inches) long and tips the scales at 78 grams (2.8 ounces).

The brownish primate has relatively large hind feet but small ears, and was named after the Marohita forest in eastern Madagascar where it was discovered, the team wrote in the International Journal of Primatology.

Marohita means "many views" in Malagasy.

Its cousin, M. tanosi, also falls on the large side of the mouse lemur scale, with a nose-to-tail length of about 27 cm (11 inches) and a weight of 51.5 grams (1.8 inches).

Discovered in Madagascar's southeast Anosy region, M. tanosi has a reddish head, with brown fur, a lighter-coloured belly, and a stripe along the spine.

The animals were discovered in 2003 and 2007, but it has taken years to formally identify them as a separate species. They probably escaped notice as they are outwardly similar to other mouse lemurs.

The team warned in their study that the Marohita forest has been "seriously fragmented and destroyed" since its namesake lemur was discovered there 10 years ago.

"Thus despite its species name, this mouse lemur is threatened by ongoing habitat destruction and 'many views' of its members are unlikely."

The team wants the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to add M. marohita to its Red List of threatened animals, and says M. tanosi was likely to follow the same route.

"Field studies and additional regional surveys are... urgently needed to determine at least the geographic range and population status of these newly described species so that appropriate conservation measures can be implemented."

The IUCN says Madagascar's lemurs are among the most endangered animals on Earth, with 91 percent of the 100-odd species and subspecies threatened with extinction.

Deforestation and poaching are the main threats to lemur survival in the Indian Ocean country plagued by political instability since a coup in 2009.

The island nation has lost some 11 million hectares (27 million acres) of its forest cover in the last 20 years, according to the IUCN.

In a report last year, the agency said the rarest lemur, the northern sportive lemur, was down to 19 known individuals.

Due to Madagascar's geographical isolation, all of the island's primates are endemic, as are 90 percent of its plants and 80 percent of its amphibians and reptiles.

New animals are still being discovered there, and the number of identified lemur species has more than tripled in the past decade. ( AFP )

Blog : Playing Small

Post : Two new rare lemur species join primate club

READ MORE - Two new rare lemur species join primate club

Goodness Snakes! Sociable Rattlers Cuddle With Their Kin

Goodness Snakes! Sociable Rattlers Cuddle With Their Kin - Though often regarded as loners, rattlesnakes may be relatively social, cuddling up with their relatives, a finding that suggests serpents may have more complex social lives than currently appreciated, researchers say.

Timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) had long been thought to be solitary creatures, though recent studies have suggested their social lives might be more complex. For instance, rattlesnakes in captivity preferentially associate with relatives and use the scents of their kin to guide them on where to forage and dwell.

To learn more about how sociable the snakes might actually be, scientists analyzed the genetic closeness of related clusters of the wild serpents.

Timber rattlesnakes living in the northeastern United States dwell in communal dens in the winter. They emerge in the spring, bask in the sun for several days at rock outcrops, and then migrate to surrounding areas to forage and mate. When pregnant, females do not undergo summer migrations, but instead bask at rookeries before giving birth in the autumn. Females in the rookeries often cluster together in groups of six or more, as do snakes at basking sites on occasion.

The scientists collected tissue samples from 29 pregnant females clustered together at 12 birthing sites and from 419 rattlesnakes in basking areas linked with 18 communal wintering dens in New York and Pennsylvania. They compared how related clustering snakes were with snakes that did not cluster together.

The researchers discovered juvenile snakes and pregnant females preferred to cluster with kin.

"All of the groups of pregnant females we examined had at least two closely related females that were probably either sisters or mother-daughter pairs," said researcher Rulon Clark, a behavioral ecologist at San Diego State University. "This pattern implies that at least female timber rattlesnakes maintain some sort of bond with relatives beyond their birth period."

"We've known for a while that mothers have an extended post-birth period where they watch over the newborn snakes as the litter basks in the sun to shed their natal skin," Clark said. "We also know from laboratory studies that females separated at birth can recognize relatives when paired up several years later, and associate more closely with relatives than non-relatives. Now we know that the pattern holds for wild populations."

The researchers found that juvenile-juvenile clustering included males and females.

"The interesting thing about the juvenile-juvenile associations is that all of the relatives were the same age, so we assume that they were from the same litter, meaning that individuals born together will continue to associate preferentially with their siblings for several years as they grow up and return to the same denning and basking sites," Clark said.

Grouping together would help the cold-blooded reptiles keep warm. Young snakes, being smaller, can lose heat faster if exposed to lower temperatures, and pregnant females need higher temperatures to keep their unborn young healthy.

"I'd love to know if this pattern of sociality is restricted to timber rattlesnakes, or also present in other rattlesnake species, or even in other pit vipers," Clark said. "I expect we'll be able to say a lot more about the social lives of these species in the near future."

The fact that rattlesnakes appear to recognize and group together based on kinship suggests they might have more complex social lives than once known. Snakes may not be especially visual or vocal in how they socialize, but they may instead depend on scents.

"Researchers don't typically think of snakes as being family-oriented animals, as most species seem to be fairly solitary," Clark said. "But here's the thing about snakes — they are so cryptic and secretive that, for many species, we really only have brief glimpses of their lives. With tools like molecular genetics we can look a little closer. In doing so, we are finding some surprises."

Clark hopes to learn more about the long-term relationships between the female rattlesnakes and their relatives.

"Do they associate closely with these same relatives over multiple years, or in other contexts? Are they mother-daughter pairs, or sister-sister pairs?" Clark asked. "Timber rattlesnakes live over 30 years in the wild, so multiple generations can overlap. These types of questions would require careful study of individuals at the same populations over many years. Maybe someday we'll be able to do such a study." ( LiveScience.com )

Blog : The Challenge
Post : Goodness Snakes! Sociable Rattlers Cuddle With Their Kin

READ MORE - Goodness Snakes! Sociable Rattlers Cuddle With Their Kin

Monkey Feared Extinct Rediscovered

Monkey Feared Extinct Rediscovered - An elusive monkey feared extinct has shown up in the remote forests of Borneo, posing for the first good pictures of the animal ever taken.

The mug shots reveal a furry Count Dracula of sorts, with the monkey's black head, face tipped with white whiskers and a pointy collar made of fluffy white fur.

The Miller's grizzled langur, an extremely rare primate that has suffered from habitat loss over the last 30 years, popped up unexpectedly in the protected Wehea Forest in east Kalimantan, Borneo.

"We knew we had found this primate that some people had speculated was potentially extinct," said study researcher Stephanie Spehar, a primatologist at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. "It was really exciting."

But the animal is still in grave danger, Spehar told LiveScience, and no one knows how many of these langurs are left. The researchers observed only two small groups of them.

Vanishing act

The shy monkey (Presbytis hosei canicrus) was seen in the 1970s in Kutai National Park in Borneo, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from where the new population lives. But as the years passed, fires and illegal logging devastated Kutai. By 2008, the Miller's grizzled langur seems to have vanished from the park. A survey that year found just five langurs living on the Sangkulirang Peninsula in East Kalitmantan, also about 50 miles (80 km) away from the newly discovered langur habitat. But by 2010, that group of primates had also disappeared.

"At this point, we didn't know if this animal still existed or whether it was still hiding out in little pockets," Spehar said.

Spehar has been working in the Wehea Forest of Borneo for four years, but she'd never seen a Miller's grizzled langur there. Last summer, however, one of her undergraduate students camped out by a mineral lick area for 10 days, a spot where animals come to get nutrients from mineral-rich soil and water. The student, Eric Fell, was conducting his own research project on animals' use of these licks, and was photographing the creatures that dropped by.

Upon returning from his stakeout, Fell showed Spehar his photographs. Among them were images of long-tailed, black-headed langurs.

"I knew this was something special," Spehar said. "I knew that it was something that was unexpected and we hadn't seen before."
Monkey reborn

Spehar, who credits the find to the work of local communities and governments that protect the forest and support her research, showed the photos to another researcher working in the woods, the director of the conservation organization Ethical Expeditions Brent Loken. The revelation surprised both parties: It turned out that Loken's group had also been staking out a mineral lick 5 miles (8 km) away from Fell's with a motion-triggered camera. They'd captured an image of the same type of primate.

"We realized that we had basically rediscovered this animal," Spehar said. Taxonomists confirmed the find as a Miller's grizzled langur. The researchers reported their find today (Jan. 20) in the American Journal of Primatology.

The simultaneous discovery suggests that there is a decent-size population of the langurs in Wehea, but Spehar cautioned that incredibly little is known about the species. No one knows how wide the langurs' range is, she said, how many there are, or their population density. That lack of knowledge isn't uncommon for many threatened species, according to Loken.

"This monkey represents a lot of species on the planet that we know very little about," Loken told LiveScience. "We don't know how many there are, we don't know where they live, what ecological requirements they need to live, and unless we get some of that information quickly, some of these species could slip into extinction before we know anything about them, or even realize that they're gone."

While Wehea itself is a more than 98,000-acre (40,000-hectare) oasis of protection, it is surrounded by forest used for logging, palm oil plantations and mining — the same sort of human uses that presumably drove the langurs out of the habitats where they once thrived. Additionally, the forest is only protected by the local community, Loken said, not the central government.

That makes the future of the Miller's grizzled langur very uncertain, Spehar said. She and her colleagues plan to conduct further research into the monkey's range and behavior to understand how best to save it from extinction. Meanwhile, Loken's group and others are working to secure extra protection for the forest.

"What we hope to do is to work with companies and concessions and with local governments to ensure this animal's protection," Spehar said. "That's the only way we will ensure that it doesn't disappear." ( LiveScience.com )

Blog : The Challenge
Post : Monkey Feared Extinct Rediscovered

READ MORE - Monkey Feared Extinct Rediscovered

Big-eyed Borneo slow loris tagged for first time

Big-eyed Borneo slow loris tagged for first time - Malaysian wildlife researchers have tagged a Bornean slow loris for the first time as part of efforts to find out more about the nocturnal primate known for its big eyes and rare toxic bite.

The researchers in Sabah state on Borneo island fitted a radio-collar on a recently caught slow loris -- a protected species that is threatened by the illegal pet trade -- to enable them to study its behaviour.

It will give scientists a valuable insight into the animal's habits, such as where it sleeps and how it hunts for insects, lizards and other prey, they said in a statement on Sunday.

"As little is known about the Bornean slow loris, particularly in Sabah, any information collected... through tracking through the forest will be important in understanding the species," Benoit Goossens, director of the Danau Girang Field Centre that is spearheading the study, said in the statement.

Malaysian wildlife researchers have tagged a Bornean slow loris for the first time as part of efforts to find out more about the nocturnal primate known for its big eyes and rare toxic bite

"With this study, we also hope to raise the awareness in Sabah on the importance of protecting nocturnal primates as much as protecting orangutans, proboscis monkeys, sun bears and elephants," Goossens added.

Laurentius Ambu, director of the Sabah Wildlife Department, said the Bornean slow loris was the second most common primate species owned as pets in Asia, after macaques. They also face threats from the medicinal and ornamental trade.

"Although slow lorises are protected by law from international and commercial trade, the greatest growing threat to slow lorises is the illegal pet trade," Ambu said in the statement.

"Lorises face extremely high mortality rates in markets and transport of them, due to starvation, dehydration and infections from dental health injuries, as their teeth are removed to increase their sales," Ambu added.

Goossens said it was hard to estimate how many Bornean slow lorises, which are indigenous to the island shared by Malaysia and Indonesia, were left in the wild.

He said no surveys had been conducted on the population but researchers hope they will be able to trap more slow lorises high up in the jungle canopy to fit them with collars.

"We hope that this can be a long-term study," he said.

Despite conservation efforts, poaching and logging threaten the survival of animal and plant species in Borneo's vast jungle, which is home to many endangered species, such as pygmy elephants and rhinos. ( AFP )

Blog : The Challenge
Post : Big-eyed Borneo slow loris tagged for first time

READ MORE - Big-eyed Borneo slow loris tagged for first time

Largest population of rare gibbon found in Vietnam

Largest population of rare gibbon found in Vietnam — Conservationists listening to a critically endangered primate's morning calls in central Vietnam's mountains heard a surprising response. About 455 animals were counted there based on their calls, making it the largest known population of northern white-cheeked crested gibbons.

Wildlife group Conservation International conducted the census in 2010 by recording the loud song-like vocalizations the gibbons use to mark territory and attract and keep mates.

The primates were in 130 different groups living in thick jungle of the mountains near the Laos border, the group said in a statement Monday. Earlier surveys elsewhere in Vietnam had not documented any populations larger than a dozen groups.

In this July 2011 photo released by Conservation International, an adult female northern white-cheeked crested gibbon, right, carries its baby as an adult male sits nearby at Pu Mat National Park, Nghe An province in Vietnam. About 455 northern white-cheeked crested gibbons were discovered in the National Park during a survey by the wildlife group Conservation International. The group is the largest known remaining population of the critically endangered primate. (AP Photo/Conservation International, Terry Whittaker) CREDIT MANDATORY, ONE TIME USE ONLY, NO ARCHIVES, EDITORIAL USE ONLY, NO SALES

The primate was known to exist in China, Vietnam and Laos. It is considered functionally extinct in China, but its numbers are unclear in Laos because little research has been conducted there.

The count was conducted in Pu Mat National Park in Nghe An province, and the conservation group expressed concerns about planned road projects that could destroy habitat in the place where the species has its last known viable population.

"The major issue will be the hunting of these gibbons that were previously protected by the harsh terrain," Luu Tuong Bach, a Conservation International consultant who led the surveys, said in the statement. "Without direct protection in Pu Mat National Park, it is likely that Vietnam will lose this species in the near future."

All of the 25 gibbon species existing worldwide are threatened, and eight of the Indochinese crested gibbon species are near extinction, including the northern white-cheeked crested gibbon. ( Associated Pres )

Blog : The Challenge
Post : Largest population of rare gibbon found in Vietnam

READ MORE - Largest population of rare gibbon found in Vietnam

Europe faces extinction of many species

Europe faces extinction of many species – The Iberian lynx that prowls the grasslands of southern Spain. The Mediterranean monk seal swimming waters off Greece and Turkey. The Bavarian pine vole that forages in the high meadows of the Alps.

These are among hundreds of European animal species — up to a quarter of the total native to the continent — that are threatened with extinction according to a warning issued this month by the European Union.

"Biodiversity is in crisis, with species extinctions running at unparalleled rates," said a statement from the European Union's Environment Commissioner, Janez Potocnik.

The threatened species include mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds and butterflies. Plant life is under threat as well. The crisis is due to several factors, including loss of habitat, pollution, alien species encroachment, climate change and overfishing.

Critics say the EU's proposed solutions don't go far enough and lack funding.

"Life is possible because of biodiversity," said Ana Nieto, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. "Everything comes from biodiversity. Everything comes from having well-functioning ecosystems."

The crisis threatens humans as well, potentially wreaking economic and social havoc in Europe, said Potocnik spokesman Joe Hennon.

The continuing loss of birds can allow insects to breed at alarming rates, harming crops, Hennon said. A reduced number of bees inhibits plant pollination. Diminishing forests mean water is not cleaned naturally and the soil is loosened, too, making floods and mud slides more likely.

All of that, Hennon said, means governments should spend money preserving species from extinction.

"People say, 'Yes, but we don't have the money to spend on environmental protection. Surely growth and jobs are more important,'" Hennon said. "You have to say, 'Well, look what happened in Pakistan last year. You can have catastrophic flooding because forests have been cut down. So it ends up costing you more in the long run."

The strategy proposed this month by Potocnik sets a variety of targets — among them, halting the loss of species in the European Union countries by 2020, putting management plans in place for all forests, restoring at least 15 percent of degraded ecosystems, controlling invasive species, and more.

Environmentalists have generally welcomed the targets but expressed skepticism.

"There needs to be funding and there's not really funding," said Nieto.

Hennon, the EU spokesman, acknowledged Monday that funding so far is insufficient to meet the EU's goals. A paper explaining the new proposals said the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, is "assessing the funding needs" for implementing the 2020 goals. The EU failed to meet its biodiversity targets for 2010.

The European Environmental Bureau, a confederation of grassroots environmental organizations, said the EU strategy "appears to fall short of delivering what is needed to protect Europe's valuable natural resource base."

Nieto said the loss of biodiversity is more acute in Europe than in many other parts of the world because of the scale of residential and industrial development. With an average of nearly 70 people per square kilometer (180 people per square mile), Europe is the second most densely populated continent, behind only Asia — and about three times as densely populated as North America.

"Today, biodiversity doesn't simply mean the protection of rare plants and species," said Sarolta Tripolzsky, with the European Environmental Bureau. "It's about protecting a system people rely on to live. The costs of replacing nature's free services would be devastating."

Conservationists argue that ecosystems over time find a complex balance and changing one seemingly small aspect can have significant consequences that cannot always be foreseen. They say there's also an obligation to preserve species, regardless of the consequences.

"The species was here before we were even here, so there's also a moral issue," Nieto said. ( Associated Press )

Blog : The Challenge
Post : Europe faces extinction of many species

READ MORE - Europe faces extinction of many species