Primatology.net

Since mouse lemurs made our blog a couple times last year, and that one of our readers recently commented on how she was doing a report on them, I figured you may want to see photo of a newly described species of mouse lemur: Goodman’s mouse lemur, Microcebus lehilahytsara.

Check out a photo of one of these critters to the right.

I do not have an official press release or scientific publication. Actually, I’ve picked this up from a fellow blogger,

“The German primatologists chose this name to honor Steve Goodman, scientist with The Field Museum in Chicago and WWF in Madagascar. “Goodman’s field research in all remote parts of Madagascar has contributed enormously to our knowledge about the diversity of Madagascar’s unique and threatened fauna and flora,” Kappeler says.

“It is truly an honor to have such an animal named after me,” Goodman says, “but this is really a joint tribute to all of the scientists and students who have taken part in our multidisciplinary surveys over the past 16 years.”

It has a long bushy tail, relatively small ears and large testes, which are suggestive of a promiscuous mating system.”

I don’t get the comment on the feature correlation and the mating system. But it’s a cool announcement, none-the-less.

A new public database has been released that overviews the status of endangered and almost extinct animals. I feel like it is a critical and timely resource, especially in regards to primate conservation efforts.

The project is called EDGE, and currently lemurs are at the top of the most critically endangered primates on that list, and sadly almost every species of lemur that I know frequent that list. Most of the animals represented on the list are small mammals, many rodents, for example. The mountain monkey of South America has made the list, and at 97 on the list of the most critically endangered is the orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus).

In other conservation news, I’m happy to report that the World Wildlife Fund has issued a statement on the rebound of mountain gorillas, in east Africa. They are,

“making a slow but steady comeback due to a decade of conservation efforts to counter the impact of war and poaching…

…There are now 340 in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, which is home to nearly half the world’s mountain gorillas, the global conservation group said.

That is a 12 percent growth over the past decade.”

Pretty awesome news, and I must tip my hat off to Paulin and his team, who run the blog Gorilla Protection. Let me remind you they broke the news of the two silverback males slaughtered recently. Their reports come straight from the field, and provide us with a tangible connection to the conservation effort of gorillas. If you don’t visit regularly, please do. Make sure you check out their video of a 2-day old gorilla as well as all their wonderful photos.

Last thing, Science has published some reports that came out from this year’s meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. One of the reports, related to gorillas, is a study of,

“the nuclear DNA from the two species of wild gorillas indicates that they diverged slowly into two species, apparently taking the better part of a million years.”

Since we were talking about genome comparisons this week, I thought you maybe interested in keeping track of more primate genome related science. Check out the report, here.

Right on the heals of yesterday’s report about the imminence of orang-utan habitat destruction, comes a similar report about the future of lemurs, the destruction of their habitat, and what we can do about it all. Lemur are a primitive primate, and are distinct from anthropoids. So they are classified as prosimians. Oh yes, there are roughly 70 species of identified lemur… nearly all of which are endangered.

In National Geographic News, “Threatened Lemurs’ Diet Key to Conservation Efforts, Researchers Say,” Summer Arrigo-Nelson‘s, an anthropologist who has been working in Madagascar’s Ranomafana National Park, research shows us that,

“[lemurs] living in unspoiled forest are eating a more nutritious diet than those in disturbed forest, since fruits and their seeds are a potent source of sugars and fats.”

Arrigo-Nelson came about this conclusion by analyzing a one-year snapshot of deforestation in Ranomafana. In her dissertation, she discusses the effect of habitat disturbance on lemurs; where lemurs in pristine habitat have a richer diet than those in disturbed habitat. Diet is closely tied in with fitness, since nutrition determines body weight, maintainence of pregnancies, and producution of high-quality milk for their offspring. Since lemurs breed only every two years,

“Arrigo-Nelson hopes to extend her research to address questions on infant mortality in pristine habitat and how lemurs respond as disturbed habitat recovers.”

Arrigo-Nelson has observed that in places where halted in 1989, small trees are now bearing fruit, enough to support an influx in the black and white ruffed lemur population, who eat fruits. Arrigo-Nelson says the rebound is pretty remarkable, and if that’s all it takes then why aren’t we stopping the illegal logging and deforestation in Madagascar?

I’ve tracked down the paper published in April of 2006, in the journal International Journal of Primatology, on the discovery of the three new species of mouse lemur from Madagascar. The paper is titled, “Revision of the Mouse Lemurs (Microcebus) of Eastern Madagascar” from Edward E. Louis, et al. The abstract reads,

“Phylogenetic analysis of ca. 4500 base pairs of mitochondrial DNA sequence data reveals further genetic diversity in mouse lemurs (Microcebus) on the eastern and western coasts of Madagascar. Molecular data and phylogenetic analyses revise the previously monotypic species of eastern Madagascar, Microcebus rufus, with the description of 3 new species. Three additional Microcebus species are proposed in eastern Madagascar, along with another Microcebus species in western Madagascar. Correlating the molecular data with previously generated sequence data, we present a tentative pattern of distribution along the east coast. We show that the general distribution of Microcebus is based on a traditional eastern/western division. The preliminary model appears strongly influenced by both rivers and altitudinal differences acting independently as barriers.”

I wanted to comment on the article because I feel like the researchers really integrated molecular evolution data and ecological distribution effectively. Mouse lemur have been pretty hard to snag, because (just as their name implies) they are small. Additionally they are nocturnal and shy, making it hard for people to document new species. Only about a dozen known species of mice lemur were to said to have existed up until 2000 (Yoder et al., 2000). With 3 more to add onto the mouse lemur geunus, this discovery significantly raises the question, “Are there more mouse lemurs in eastern Madagascar?”

In order to fully answer that question researchers sequenced 60 mtDNA samples from collected lemurs and their results yielded 15 clades, differentiating the 8 already identificed Microcebus and the 3 newly described species. But to my surprise, since it wasn’t documented in the news headlines, there are also 4 other proposed mouse lemur taxa. Futhermore, Louis and crew also realized a species of mouse lemur, specifically Microcebus griseorufus occupies an ecological niche not previously known at Tsimanampetsotsa.

This new discovery has great potential because it provides more information that there is a really diverse population of lemur occupying Madagascar, convincing me that there is more incentive than ever to promote preservation of habitats and conserve as many species as possible before lemur populations are devastated by deforestation. I justify this because lemur are one of the most primitive primate species alive today. In order to understand primate evolution fully, preserving these “living primate fossils” provides an excellent foundation to understand how primates diversified into the species we see today.

Lemur are primates that inhabit Madagascar, and three new species of them have been anounced despite the fact that they were located in the eastern rain forests in 2001. They are all mouse sized primates and have all gotten the genus Microcebus to describe their small bodies.

One of the species have been named, Microcebus mittermeieri, named after primatologist and Conservation International president Russell Mittermeier, “for his commitment and dedication to protecting wildlife and forest habitat all over the world.” The second lemur has been named Microcebus simmonsi, after Lee Simmons, director of the Henry Doorly Zoo, and Microcebus jollyae, for Alison Jolly, a lemur researcher at Princeton University in New Jersey.

The discovery of these new lemurs have influenced the Madagascar’s president to recently announce that the government would be tripling the total size of the island’s protected areas to 14,826,000 acres (6,000,000 hectares), which is a significant contribution to primate research and conservation.

The discovery will be published in the current issue of the scientific journal International Journal of Primatology. You can read more about the discovery over at National Geographic News.