Two new species of “flying lemur” or colugo have been discovered using genetic work. However, “flying lemur” is a misnomer, since genetic work has placed colugos into a mere “sister group to primates,” and colugos aren’t endemic to Madagascar as lemurs are, but are found in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, colugos don’t actually fly. These animals, using a special skin membrane called a patagium, glide from tree to tree within their arboreal habitat. From Science Daily:

Scientists had recognized just two species of these enigmatic mammals, the Sunda colugo and the Philippine colugo. However, the new findings show that the Sunda colugo, found only in Indochina and Sundaland, including the large islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java, actually represents at least three separate species.

“We were guessing that we might find that there were different species of Sunda colugo—although we were not sure,” said Jan Janecka of Texas A&M University. “But what really surprised us was how old the speciation events were. Some went back four to five million years,” making the colugo species as old as other modern species groups (or genera) such as the primates known as macaques and the leopard cats.

The team’s initial hunch that the Sunda colugos might be distinct species came largely from obvious differences in characteristics like body size and color. In the new study, they compared the DNA of colugos living on the mainland, Java, and Borneo, uncovering enough divergence between the sequences to warrant their designation as three species.

Image of female colugo (Cynocephalus variegatus) with infant taken by Norman Lim, and the image was found here

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