Primatology.net

P.kelyus maxilla fragment. Photo from LiveScience.

Remains of a new giant lemur species, Palaeopropithecus kelyus, was found in Madagascar. Dominique Gommery, a paleontologist at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris, France said that the discovery confirms 20 years of speculation on its existence.

So far, there are 3 species of giant lemurs identified in Madagascar, Palaeopropithecus kelyus, Palaeopropithecus ingens and Palaeopropithecus maximus. P. kelyus is the smallest of all three, its estimated weight is about 77 lbs. The largest living lemur in Madagascar is the Indri, which weighs about 22lbs. Judging from the teeth, P. kelyus might have chewed on tough food such as seeds and nuts. Read about the article from LiveScience: New Giant Lemur Species Discovered.

Originally posted on The Prancing Papio.

Plasmodium falciparum infecting Red Blood Cells

Plasmodium falciparum is the protozoan parasite that causes malaria in humans and ultimately the death of 2-3 million people a year. If you didn’t know, malaria is one of the most common infectious diseases and an enormous public health problem. Only one other malaria causing protozoan, a sister species of the P. falciparum parasite, P. reichenowi, was known to cause malaria but infects only chimpanzees. That was until researchers based in Gabon and France began sampling pet chimpanzees.

The team collected blood from 19 wild-borne animals kept as pets by villagers in Gabon, 17 of them being chimps. They found out that infected by a Plasmodium parasite, but sequencing of the parasite’s whole mitochondrial genome showed that it wasn’t P. falciparum nor P. reichenowi. Rather, it was a new species more closely related to P. falciparum. They classified the new species as P. gaboni.

Phylogenetic relationships among Plasmodium species (including P. sp_K) and associated host groups.

They have published their findings in the open access journal PLoS Genetics, under the title, “A New Malaria Agent in African Hominids.” You maybe asking why this is relevant to primatology? Many are against studies that use primates like chimpanzees because of ethical reasons. In situations like this, chimpanzees already infected with the parasite are useful to sample and study to shed light on the genomic adaptations of P. falciparum to humans and thus help in the discovery of new potential drug targets.

Ollomo, B., Durand, P., Prugnolle, F., Douzery, E., Arnathau, C., Nkoghe, D., Leroy, E., & Renaud, F. (2009). A New Malaria Agent in African Hominids PLoS Pathogens, 5 (5) DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1000446

Reported in gorillas and documented in chimpanzees, some apes actually cannibalize their own species. However, there were reports of orangutans cannibalizing their own babies were reported in the same forest area of Indonesia, just one month apart from each other.

This might be the first report of an ape eating its own offspring. “Cannibalism has been documented in chimpanzees and reported in gorillas. Never before has any ape species been seen treating its own offspring as a consumable resource”, said David Dellatore of Oxford Brookes University. Dellatore suspects that the mothers’ stressed upbringing may have triggered their later actions. Read the article from BBC – Earth News “Orangutans cannibalise own babies“.

Originally posted on The Prancing Papio.