Article: New Mammals: Coincidence, shopping yield two species
- From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <rstonjek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 01:49:04 -0400 (EDT)
New Mammals: Coincidence, shopping yield two species
Susan Milius
After 21 years without a new kind of monkey being reported in Africa, two
research teams working independently in different mountain ranges have
described the same novel species. And other researchers, after poking
through meat for sale in Southeast Asia, report a rodent that they say
justifies a new family among mammals, the first in 31 years.
The monkey species, now called the highland mangabey or Lophocebus kipunji,
has turned up at locations in southern Tanzania 370 kilometers apart. One
discovery came from scientists' curiosity about stories around Mount Rungwe
of an elusive monkey. In December 2003, Tim Davenport of Mbeya, Tanzania,
who works for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, and his team
got a good-enough look to recognize it as a new species.
Meanwhile, ornithologists had told Trevor Jones at Udzungwa Mountains
National Park in Tanzania that they had spotted sanje mangabeys, an
endangered monkey, in a remote forest. But as soon as Jones saw one of the
mangabeys there, he says that he knew the brownish color and high crest of
hair were all wrong for a sanje mangabey. "I was immediately gobsmacked," he
says.
Full Text at ScienceNews
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050521/fob3.asp
Posted By
Robert Karl Stonjek
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