#Silver-backed chevrotain

[reasonsforhope]

"The first and only fungus on a global conservation outfit’s ’25 Most Wanted List’ has been found in the rain-soaked mountains of Chile, almost 40 years after it was first documented.

The big puma fungus is actually quite small, and despite being on the ’25 Most Wanted List’ it’s also rather unremarkable, being slightly greyish brown, and no bigger than a shitake.

GNN is always abreast of updates to the brilliant conservation initiative Search for Lost Species which has rediscovered several wondrous species of plants and animals through collaborative scientific expeditions to look for forms of life not seen in over ten years.

The big puma fungus (Austroomphaliaster nahuelbutensis), an enigmatic species of fungi that lives underground in Chile’s Nahuelbuta Mountains had only ever been found in the wild once.

An expedition team from the Fungi Foundation in Chile set out for the temperate forests of the Nahuelbutas in May 2023 to retrace the footsteps of Chilean mycologist Norberto Garrido, who discovered the big puma fungus and described it to Western science in 1988.

They timed the expedition to coincide with the exact dates in May that Garrido had hiked the mountains more than 40 years earlier.

“It’s possible that the reproductive parts of the big puma fungus—the mushroom—are only fleetingly visible above the soil on the same few days each year, which made the timing of the expedition a crucial factor,” said Claudia Bustamante, a mycologist, and member of the expedition team.

The expedition was captured in a documentary called In Search of a Lost Fungus, in which viewers can see how a last-minute day hike organized near a local Nahuelbutas community led to the big puma fungus’ eventual discovery.

On the last day of the expedition, the Fungi Foundation led a workshop and a community hike to look for fungi in a nearby forest. During that hike, two of the local participants found a group of about four mushrooms that all matched the description of the big puma fungus.

The expedition team carefully collected the mushrooms, leaving the mycelium in the ground, and took the mushrooms to the Fungi Foundation’s fungarium (FFCL). Although the mushrooms matched the physical and microscopical description of the big puma fungus, it was a DNA analysis that eventually confirmed the team had found the correct species.

“We knew it was going to be hard to find the big puma fungus and that the chances of finding the mushrooms were low, considering their colors and how they blend with the fallen leaves,” said Daniela Torres, programs lead at the Fungi Foundation and leader of the expedition.

“It was truly a unique moment when we managed to be in the right place at the right time to see the mushrooms. Understanding the biodiversity that exists and interacts within a specific area helps us comprehend its behavior and its potential to adapt to ongoing changes and underlying threats.”

Since 2017, the Search for Lost Species has rediscovered 13 of the world’s most wanted lost species. In addition to the big puma fungus, Re:wild, working with partners across the world, has confirmed the rediscovery of Jackson’s climbing salamander in Guatemala, both Wallace’s giant bee and the velvet pitcher plant in Indonesia, the silver-backed chevrotain in Vietnam, the Somali sengi in Djibouti, the Voeltzkow’s chameleon in Madagascar, Fernandina giant tortoise in the Galápagos, Sierra Leone crab in Sierra Leone, the Pernambuco holly tree in Brazil, Attenborough’s echidna in Indonesia, De Winton’s golden mole in South Africa and Fagilde’s trapdoor spider in Portugal."

-via Good News Network, September 13, 2024

[wachinyeya]

Mushroom Enthusiasts Help Find Species Lost to Science–Rescuing it from Nature’s ‘Top 25 Most Wanted’ List https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/mushroom-enthusiasts-help-find-species-lost-to-science-rescuing-it-from-natures-top-25-most-wanted-list/

The big puma fungus is actually quite small, and despite being on the ’25 Most Wanted List’ it’s also rather unremarkable, being slightly greyish brown, and no bigger than a shitake.

GNN is always abreast of updates to the brilliant conservation initiative Search for Lost Species which has rediscovered several wondrous species of plants and animals through collaborative scientific expeditions to look for forms of life not seen in over ten years.

The big puma fungus (Austroomphaliaster nahuelbutensis), an enigmatic species of fungi that lives underground in Chile’s Nahuelbuta Mountains had only ever been found in the wild once.

An expedition team from the Fungi Foundation in Chile set out for the temperate forests of the Nahuelbutas in May 2023 to retrace the footsteps of Chilean mycologist Norberto Garrido, who discovered the big puma fungus and described it to Western science in 1988.

They timed the expedition to coincide with the exact dates in May that Garrido had hiked the mountains more than 40 years earlier.

“It’s possible that the reproductive parts of the big puma fungus—the mushroom—are only fleetingly visible above the soil on the same few days each year, which made the timing of the expedition a crucial factor,” said Claudia Bustamante, a mycologist, and member of the expedition team.

The expedition was captured in a documentary called In Search of a Lost Fungus, in which viewers can see how a last-minute day hike organized near a local Nahuelbutas community led to the big puma fungus’ eventual discovery.

On the last day of the expedition, the Fungi Foundation led a workshop and a community hike to look for fungi in a nearby forest. During that hike, two of the local participants found a group of about four mushrooms that all matched the description of the big puma fungus.

The expedition team carefully collected the mushrooms, leaving the mycelium in the ground, and took the mushrooms to the Fungi Foundation’s fungarium (FFCL). Although the mushrooms matched the physical and microscopical description of the big puma fungus, it was a DNA analysis that eventually confirmed the team had found the correct species.

“We knew it was going to be hard to find the big puma fungus and that the chances of finding the mushrooms were low, considering their colors and how they blend with the fallen leaves,” said Daniela Torres, programs lead at the Fungi Foundation and leader of the expedition.

“It was truly a unique moment when we managed to be in the right place at the right time to see the mushrooms. Understanding the biodiversity that exists and interacts within a specific area helps us comprehend its behavior and its potential to adapt to ongoing changes and underlying threats.”

Since 2017, the Search for Lost Species has rediscovered 13 of the world’s most wanted lost species. In addition to the big puma fungus, Re:wild, working with partners across the world, has confirmed the rediscovery of Jackson’s climbing salamander in Guatemala, both Wallace’s giant bee and the velvet pitcher plant in Indonesia, the silver-backed chevrotain in Vietnam, the Somali sengi in Djibouti, the Voeltzkow’s chameleon in Madagascar, Fernandina giant tortoise in the Galápagos, Sierra Leone crab in Sierra Leone, the Pernambuco holly tree in Brazil, Attenborough’s echidna in Indonesia, De Winton’s golden mole in South Africa and Fagilde’s trapdoor spider in Portugal

[meret118]

I think those may be two different Chevrotain species.

Chevrotains, or mouse-deer, are diminutive, even-toed ungulates that make up the family Tragulidae, and are the only living members of the infraorder Tragulina. The 10 extant species are placed in three genera,[1][2] but several species also are known only from fossils.[3] The extant species are found in forests in South and Southeast Asia; a single species, the water chevrotain, is found in the rainforests of Central and West Africa.[4] In November 2019, conservation scientists announced that they had photographed silver-backed chevrotains (Tragulus versicolor) in a Vietnamese forest for the first time since the last confirmed sightings in 1990.[5][6][7]

Source

[the-faunal-frontier]

Tragulus versicolor - Vietnam Mouse-Deer

[mudwerks]

(via A “mouse-deer,” seen once in the last century, has now been caught on film | Ars Technica)

The silver-backed chevrotain, a tiny "mouse-deer" native to Vietnam, is a sighting significant for more than just Nguyen's personal tally. There has been only one confirmed record of the elusive mammal since 1910—a specimen obtained from a hunter in 1990—until Nguyen and his team set camera traps that recorded 280 sightings within nine months...

[also-yelling-into-the-void]

“I live, bitches!”

[focusonthegoodnews]

Back from the abyss: These are the animal species that resurfaced in 2019 after they were feared lost Good News Notes: "Humanity has grown accustomed to bidding farewell to species of animals as time goes on.

[labete-du-gevaudan]

These are images from trail cameras in Vietnam. They show off a Silver-Backed Chevrotain. This is the first time it has been photographed alive in the wild. It was thought to have been lost to science for nearly 30 years. With the help of local hunters and government forest rangers, camera traps were able to be placed in areas that the chevrotains were thought to frequent. Global Wildlife Conservation and its team published their findings in Nature Ecology & Evolution. 

[animalworld]

Rabbit-sized SILVER BACKED CHEVROTAIN Tragulus versicolor Link to Article By Marisa Iati A small deer-like creature that conservationists feared was extinct has been photographed, in Vietnam, for the first time in almost three decades.Scientists had last spotted the silver-backed chevrotain, also called the Vietnamese mouse-deer, in 1990 in central Vietnam, Global Wildlife Conservation said in a statement. The rabbit-size chevrotain lives in a tropical forest-covered part of the Asian nation, is often targeted by poachers and is the first mammal on the Texas-based organization’s list of 25 most-wanted lost species to be found

[rjzimmerman]

I recently posted a link to a story that tells us that this little mammal, the silver-backed chevrotain, was “rediscovered” in Vietnam, years after it was feared to be extinct. It’s also called the “Vietnam mouse-deer.” Nobody saw it for 25 years. I posted a photo of it, but that photo didn’t five us an idea of its size, or its unique facial features. It’s about as big as a rabbit. As to facial features, take a look. Here’s an excerpt from a story from Mongabay:

Chevrotains may be called mouse-deer, and they do resemble rabbit-sized “deer.” But they are not in the deer family, Cervidae. Instead they make up their own family, Tragulidae, and infraorder, Tragulina, which translates roughly into “little goat.” All the world’s chevrotains but one (the water chevrotain of Central Africa, Hyemoschus aquaticus) are found in Asia. The world’s smallest ungulates, chevrotains are actually ancient and primitive, having broken off from all other ruminants 50 million years ago. Chevrotains have surprising features like four toes, fangs, and for some, at least, the ability to stay submerged underwater for a surprisingly long time; some believe they may even represent a direct link to the kind of early mammal that eventually evolved into whales and hippos.

[stealth-science]

Not extinct yet!

[typhlonectes]

Feast your eyes on the first-ever photos of a silver-backed chevrotain in the wild

The images confirm the species, which has been “lost” to science for 29 years, is alive and well in its native Vietnam.

Of the many animals Andrew Tilker studies, there are plenty he’s never actually seen in person.

It can feel a bit like chasing after mythical beasts, admits the Global Wildlife Conservation biologist. But that’s par for the course, he says, when you’re searching for species considered “lost” to science.

That’s certainly been the case for the silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor)—a fanged, cat-sized deer relative that looks like it lowered itself halfway into a bath of metallic paint before changing its mind. Though Western researchers have known about this skittish creature for more than a century, they’ve collected only five specimens, all corpses obtained from hunters in Vietnam.

The last of these appeared nearly three decades ago, in 1990. No Western biologist—Tilker included—has ever glimpsed a silver-backed chevrotain alive.

But now, with the help of local knowledge and a cluster of well-placed camera traps, Tilker and his team have snapped the first-ever photos and videos of the silver-backed chevrotain in the wild. Their findings, published today in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, go beyond the glamour shot: They confirm that, despite decades of illegal poaching and habitat destruction, this mysterious mini-mammal remains alive and well in its native Vietnam—for now...

Read more: PBS - Nova

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Amidst the dry, thorny underbrush of a coastal Vietnamese forest, a silver-backed chevrotain stepped into view of a camera trap — and back into the scientific record after almost three decades.

The deerlike ungulate, no bigger than a toy poodle, had only ever been studied from dead specimens, four obtained in 1907 and one in 1990. Scientists feared the animal might have gone extinct due to hunting and habitat loss.

But local residents knew better, and in late 2017 directed researchers to forest areas where the the silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor) might be living. Cameras triggered by motion or heat then snapped the first photographic evidence that the elusive animal still exists, according to a study published online November 11 in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

“We were really excited” by the find, says An Nguyen, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin. The region’s forests are home to many mammals found nowhere else, but an increase in animal traps and encroaching human development in recent decades have put that diversity under threat.

Researchers captured 208 images to confirm the silver-backed chevrotain (pictured) still lived in the wild in Vietnam. They know there’s more than one, as this image shows, but the size of the population is unclear.

CREDIT: SOUTHERN INSTITUTE OF ECOLOGY, GLOBAL WILDLIFE CONSERVATION, LEIBNIZ INSTITUTE FOR ZOO AND WILDLIFE RESEARCH, NCNP

“Indiscriminate snaring has taken a tremendous toll on mammal communities across Vietnam,” says Andrew Tilker, also a biologist at the Leibniz Institute. Snaring has left “a lot more forest than animals to inhabit it in Vietnam,” he says.

But a species lost to science is not necessarily extinct. So Nguyen and colleagues visited towns and villages near the southeast city of Nha Trang in the fall of 2017 to ask people about the animal. “‘Had they seen chevrotain with silver backs? How many? Where?’” Nguyen says in recalling the researchers’ questions to locals. People referred to both the silver-backed chevrotain and its more common cousin, the lesser chevrotain, by the same name, “cheo cheo.” But many reported seeing the distinctive silver-haired chevrotain.

The team set up cameras at three spots in the forest where silver-backed chevrotain had been spotted. The first images of the silver-backed chevrotain were discovered when the team collected the cameras five months later.

After adding 30 more camera traps, the team ended up with a total of 1,881 images that documented 208 separate, daytime visits, mostly by individual creatures but occasionally by pairs. It’s unclear how many individuals were photographed, or whether the animals were part of a larger population. “We just can’t tell with these cameras,” Nguyen says.

A camera trap captures video of a silver-backed chevrotain scouring the forest floor. Little is known about the biology of this species, as scientists have described it only from dead specimens.

The villagers weren’t surprised that the animals had been spotted, Nguyen says. “They see them all the time,” he says, though many reported the animals’ numbers had declined in recent years.

The research “emphasizes the critical value of integrating local ecological knowledge into biodiversity conservation efforts,” says Patricia Fifita, an environmental anthropologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who was not involved in the research.

Tilker agrees, noting that villagers’ help proved crucial to the researchers’ success in this study. “Local people often have a vast reservoir of ecological knowledge that just isn’t available to any scientists,” he says.

Without more research and population-level data, the future of the silver-backed chevrotain is unclear. If the species exists only in this part of Vietnam, it could be highly threatened, Tilker says. “Right now it’s just a question mark.”

[sciencespies]

Strange, 'long-lost' elephant shrew has been rediscovered in Africa after 50 years

https://sciencespies.com/nature/strange-long-lost-elephant-shrew-has-been-rediscovered-in-africa-after-50-years/

Strange, 'long-lost' elephant shrew has been rediscovered in Africa after 50 years

For half a century scientists feared that the Somali elephant shrew had vanished from the face of the Earth. No one had seen so much as a whisker.

But the tiny mammal with its probing trunk-like nose was quietly thriving in the arid, rocky landscape of the Horn of Africa, researchers said Tuesday.

The elusive, insect-eating creature is neither an elephant nor a shrew.

It is a sengi – a distant relation to aardvarks, elephants and manatees – the size of a mouse, with powerful legs that allow it to run at speeds of nearly 30 kilometres (20 miles) an hour.

The Somali sengi has been lost to science since the 1970s, leaving just the 39 preserved specimens held in the world’s natural history museums as the only physical evidence that it ever existed.

The Global Wildlife Conservation group even included it on its “25 most wanted lost species” list.

(AFP/Steven Heritage/Duke University/Global Wildlife Conservation)

But during an expedition last year scientists found the animals still roaming the wild, discovering that the Somali sengi is not confined to Somalia at all.

The research mission was looking for different kinds of sengis in Djibouti, the small Horn of Africa coastal nation that borders Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The team set up more than 1,250 traps filled with peanut butter, oatmeal and yeast extract in 12 areas in Djibouti, buoyed by speaking to local communities, where people could readily recognise the animals from photographs.

“Our interviews with local nomadic and pastoralist people indicated that they see sengis regularly and we were consistently told the same common name (Wali sandheer),” said Houssein Rayaleh, of Association Djibouti Nature, who was on the team.

The conservationist said he too had seen sengis during his 21 years doing fieldwork in the country.

But no one knew whether they were the long-lost Somali sengi.

“Without formal documentation, the species of the sengis in Djibouti was unknown,” Rayaleh told AFP.

The team also included global elephant shrew expert Galen Rathburn, who had been studying the creatures for decades but had never seen a live Somali sengi, according to researcher Steven Heritage, of the Duke University Lemur Center.

“So when he opened the first trap and looked over at me, and he had seen the cute tufted furry tail of the animal and he looked at me and said ‘I can’t believe it, I’ve never seen one before’,” Heritage told AFP. Rathbun died of cancer shortly after the expedition.

The researchers collected twelve specimens of the mammal.

Their findings prove that the Somali sengi “is currently extant” and lives far beyond the boundaries of Somalia, the researchers said in a study published in the journal PeerJ.

Least Concern

The team, which plans a new expedition to learn more about the species, believes the sengi could be living across Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia.

And while they cannot estimate the size of the population, they believe the sengi is thriving.

“All the local people knew about this, so it could not be rare in any way,” said Heritage, the lead author of the study.

“And its habitats are not threatened by agriculture and human development, in a very arid environment where there is no foreseeable future for agriculture.”

As a result, researchers recommended that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reappraise its classification for the Somali sengi on its list of vulnerable creatures, from “Data Deficient” to “Least Concern”.

“Usually when we rediscover lost species, we find just one or two individuals and have to act quickly to try to prevent their imminent extinction,” said Robin Moore of Global Wildlife Conservation.

Other species rediscovered in recent years include Jackson’s climbing salamander in Guatemala, the Wallace’s giant bee in Indonesia, and the silver-backed chevrotain – a deer-like species the size of a rabbit – in Vietnam.

Moore said this raises hope for those species still thought to be “lost”, including the Ilin Island cloudrunner, a cloud rat from a single island in the Philippines.

© Agence France-Presse

#Nature