- Scientists with the German Primate Center (DPZ), the University of Kentucky, the American Duke Lemur Center, and Madagascar’s Université d’Antananarivo have found three new species of mouse lemurs that live in the South and East of Madagascar.
- Though their name and appearance might suggest that they are rodents, mouse lemurs are in fact primates.
- It was only through the use of advanced methods that allow for more precise measurements of genetic differences that the team of researchers was able to establish the three new species.
There are now 24 known species of mouse lemur, all of them found in Madagascar.
Scientists with the German Primate Center (DPZ), the University of Kentucky, the American Duke Lemur Center, and Madagascar’s Université d’Antananarivo have found three new species of mouse lemurs that live in the South and East of Madagascar. They described the new species — Microcebus boraha, Microcebus ganzhorni, and Microcebus manitatra — in the journal Molecular Ecology.
Though their name and appearance might suggest that they are rodents, mouse lemurs are in fact primates. What’s more, all mouse lemur species look extremely similar: they are small, nocturnal animals with brown fur and large eyes. It was only through the use of advanced methods that allow for more precise measurements of genetic differences that the team of researchers was able to establish the three new species.
“By using new, objective methods to assess genetic differences between individuals, we were able to find independent evidence that these three mouse lemurs represent new species,” Peter Kappeler, Head of the Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Unit at the German Primate Center, said in a statement.
Kappeler and team also performed their own analysis that confirmed the status of the previously described 21 species. “The genetic techniques we used could facilitate species identification, thus also contributing to further new descriptions in other animal groups,” he said.
As recently as two decades ago, there were only two known species of mouse lemurs, but new genetic profiling methods in combination with expeditions to remote areas have brought that number up to two dozen.
Knowing the exact distribution area of individual species is necessary in establishing protected areas to help conserve the species, which are threatened by deforestation and hunting, Kappeler said. “Furthermore, this new information is an important element towards better understanding how biodiversity on Madagascar arose,” he added.
Microcebus ganzhorni, also known as Ganzhorn’s mouse lemur, was named after the ecologist Professor Jörg Ganzhorn from Hamburg University, who initiated the field research of the German Primate Center in Madagascar in the 1990s.
The name of Microcebus manitatra, which is found in the Southeast of the “Big Island,” references the expansion of the range of a subgroup from western Madagascar.
Microcebus boraha, meanwhile, is named after its location on Nosy Boraha, an island off the east coast of Madagascar formerly called the Island of Sainte Marie.
According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, more than 100 known species of lemur are threatened by extinction, making them the world’s most endangered group of mammals.
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CITATION
- Hotaling, S., Foley, M. E., Lawrence, N. M., Bocanegra, J., Blanco, M. B., Rasoloarison, R., … & Weisrock, D. W. (2016). Species discovery and validation in a cryptic radiation of endangered primates: coalescent‐based species delimitation in Madagascar’s mouse lemurs. Molecular ecology. doi:10.1111/mec.13604