CAN YOU SEE ME? | ANIMAL CAMOUFLAGE: Colorful toad rediscovered

Posted on July 17, 2011

Despite being colorful, the Sambas stream toad blends into its mossy, arboreal habitat. This species was recently rediscovered after more than 85 years of absence. More via the New York Times:

The Borneo rainbow toad, with its long spindly legs, looks a bit like an Abstract Expressionist canvas splattered in bright green, purple and red. But when this amphibian was last seen, in 1924, the painter Jackson Pollock was just 12, and the only image of the mysterious creature was a black-and-white sketch.

That changed this summer when the toad was rediscovered high in the ridges of the Gunung Penrissen range of Western Sarawak, between Sarawak State in Malaysia and Kalimantan Barat Province in Indonesia. Because of market demand for bright-colored amphibians, which are sold as pets, Indraneil Das, a herpetologist at the University of Malaysia at Sarawak who led the research team that found the toad, declined to be more specific about the location, saying only that it was spotted about six feet up a tree in that region on the night of June 12 by one of his graduate students, Pui Yong Min.

Continue reading this article at the New York Times.

See more animal camouflage here on The Conservation Report.

REDISCOVERED SPECIES: Several species (and one subspecies) thought extinct rediscovered

Posted on September 22, 2010

A species of skink—the Vosmer’s writhing skink (Lygosoma vosmaerii)—has been rediscovered in India. Apparently, the skink hasn’t been seen since 1839. More via The Hindu:

Zoologists from Osmania University have rediscovered a species belonging to the lizard family, which was last seen way back in 1839 in the then Bengal province. The species, thought to be extinct till now, has been identified as Lygosoma Vosmaerii and is also known as Vosmer’s Writhing Skink. It was found by the research team at Jaggayyapet, Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh.

Image showing Thyreophora cynophila via Wikipedia

After 160 years, Thyreophora cynophila, a unique species of fly, which specializes on feeding off carcasses at a particular stage of decomposition, has been rediscovered in Spain. More via the BBC:

Thought to be the first fly driven to extinction by humans, it was also considered one of Europe’s few endemic animals to have disappeared for good.

The bizarre fly was considered ‘mythical’ due to its orange head, its preference for living on dead animal carcasses, and the fact it was rarely sighted even in the 19th Century.

. . .

Changes in livestock management in central Europe, improved carrion disposal following the Industrial Revolution, as well as the eradication of wolves and other big bone-crushing carnivores could have helped eliminate the fly.

Video: Thyreophora cynophila

A flowering plant, Clermontia peleana singuliflora, has been rediscovered on Hawaii after almost 100 years of absence. More via First Post:

flower thought to be extinct for almost 100 years has been rediscovered in Hawaii. The species of lobelia was found growing on native trees and ferns in rainforests covering the slopes of the Kohala volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The flower, known as ‘oha wai’ in Hawaiian, was last seen on the island in 1909 and last collected on the nearby island of East Maui in 1920. It had never been recorded on the slopes of Kohala before.

Conservation worker Jon Griffin explained how researchers made the unexpected discovery. “We were surveying a rare tree snail population when we came across a native lobelia plant that we were unable to identify,” he revealed.

He said they sent photographs of the flower to Dr Thomas Lammers, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, who identified it as Clermontia peleana singuliflora, which had not been seen for 90 years and was believed to have died out.

Image showing the Sierra Nevada red fox by Keith Slausen

The Sierra Nevada red fox has been rediscovered in the central California. This subspecies of red fox hasn’t been seen since the 1990s. More via National Geographic:

The Sierra Nevada red fox subspecies hadn’t been seen in central California since the 1990s and was considered gone from the area. Only one other population of Sierra Nevada foxes are known, farther north in the Lassen Peak region (see map).

But U.S. Forest Service officials suspected photographs taken by a trail camera near the Sierra Nevada mountains’ Sonora Pass (see map) in August had captured a Sierra Nevada red fox gnawing on a “bait bag” of chicken scraps.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, ran DNA tests on saliva samples from the bag, and sure enough, the spit confirmed the fox as a Sierra Nevada. Testing saliva is “not uncommon,” said Ben Sacks, director of the Canid Diversity and Conservation Unit of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory.

“We thought they were gone,” Sacks added. “We were wrong.”

Image showing Hyperolius sankuruensis by Jos Kielgast / Conservation International

Three species of amphibians—two species of frogs and one species of salamander—have been rediscovered around the world. More via Wildlife Extra:

The three animals that have been rediscovered so far include a Mexican salamander not seen since it was discovered in 1941, a frog from the Ivory Coast not seen since 1967 and another frog from Democratic Republic of Congo not seen since 1979.

REDISCOVERED SPECIES: Sibree’s dwarf lemur rediscovered

Posted on April 13, 2010

This species of lemur was discovered more than a 100 years ago but was thought extinct due to deforestation, which is a big problem in Madagascar. More on the discovery from Scientific American:

Scientists have long believed that the Sibree’s dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus sibreei) went extinct following the destruction of its only known forest habitat. But a few years ago Mitchell Irwin of McGill University in Montreal and his research team encountered some dwarf lemurs that didn’t quite look the way they expected the species to appear. Two lemurs were caught, their DNA tested, and the Sibree’s dwarf lemur was revealed.

This is actually the first confirmation that the Sibree’s lemur is truly its own species. The species looks almost identical to the Crossley’s dwarf lemur (C. melanotis), with which it shares its habitat. The research proving its morphological uniqueness was published online March 6 in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

More via PhysOrg.com:

The species was first discovered in Madagascar in 1896, but this tiny, nocturnal dwarf lemur was never studied throughout the 20th century. Following the destruction of its only known rainforest habitat, scientists had no idea whether the species still existed in the wild – or even whether it was a distinct species.

. . .

This work led to the further surprise that two morphologically distinct dwarf lemur species were present, living side-by-side. Further work by geneticist Linn Groeneveld, German Primate Center confirmed the existence of the more common Crossley’s dwarf lemur, and the elusive Sibree’s dwarf lemur.

The new study showed the mystery lemurs to be very similar to the only known specimen of Sibree’s dwarf lemur, now in The Natural History Museum in London, England. Genetic analysis shows the mystery lemurs to be highly distinct from all other known species. In fact, the genetic analyses confirmed that of the four known dwarf lemur species, this is the most genetically unique and probably closely resembles the ancestor that gave rise to the other species.

Image showing historical deforestation rates of Madagascar was found here

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