Working in remote deserts of northwestern Namibia , scientists have pick up a new species of troll - earedsengi , or elephant shrew . It ’s the smallest of all19 knownsengis , and they ’ve named it the Etendeka around - eared sengi , Macroscelides micus .
Elephant shrews are funny footling thing . They ’re about the size of a computer mouse , yet they ’re more tight related to elephants , sea cows , and aadrvarks than to rightful shrews and other gnawer . They use their tiny , truck - like rostrum to James Henry Leigh Hunt insects .
After nine pile up trips between 2005 and 2011 – and 5,616 trap - nighttime of effort – an international team take byJohn Dumbacher of the California Academy of Scienceswas rewarded with a total of 16 specimen of an “ strange ” sengi . compare with know elephant shrews ( order Macroscelidea ) , they ’re smaller and their fur and hair vividness are unlike .
These specimens weighed between 18 and 42 g ( with the heaviest one being a pregnant female person ) , and they are about 190 millimeters long , including the shadow . They ’re fur is out of practice dark and , without saturnine skin pigments , they have lighter , pinkish feet and ears . These new sengis also have a large hairless secretor on the underside of the nates that they belike used for signaling others in the universe .
For equivalence , here ’s a picture of the newMacroscelides micus(top ) and the intimately related Namib around - eared sengi ( M. flavicaudatus , bottom ) fromDumbacher et al . 2014 .
The new petty guys seem to be confined to the gravel plains of the distinctively blood-red - colored Etendeka geological organization in the Namib Desert . They appear to be reproductively isolated from other sengi species , and no grounds of interbreeding was find . A preliminary transmitted depth psychology showed divergency with their closet relatives at multiple DNA locus .
“ Genetically , Macroscelides micusis very different from other members of the genus and it ’s exciting to imagine that there are still areas of the world where even the mammal zoology is nameless and wait to be explored , ” Dumbacher allege in anews release . The raw species is named for “ mickros , ” which is Greek substance small .
This is the third new elephant shrew species discovered in the state of nature in the last decade ; all sengi mintage have been found in Africa . Thedescription [ pdf]is published in theJournal of Mammalogythis week .
Images : Galen Rathbun / California Academy of Sciences ( top ) & J.P. Dumbacher et al . , Journal of Mammology 2014 ( middle )
