Island revelations

Madagascar is the world’s fourth largest island and is recognised as one of of the world’s top ten hotspots for biodiversity. Separated from Africa for 160 million years, it is home to between around 12,000 plant species of which nearly 10,000 are thought to be unique to the island. And much of its fauna is of great interest too, no more so than its lemurs, the primate family of major interest for evolutionary studies. So the announcement of not one but two new species, in the current issue of Primate Report is of global interest. A mouse-sized lemur is one of two newly discovered species. Finding a new species of lemur is rare and its discovery in the rainforest of Madagascar came as a surprise even to the team of scientists from the German Primate Centre and the University of Goettingen who made it. “We still have a lot to learn about patterns and causes of biodiversity, even among our closest biological cousins,” said Peter Kappeler, one of the team. Many species have become extinct since humans first populated Madagascar about 1,500 years ago, and lemurs are among the most endangered of primates. But the number of known species has risen to 49 following the genetic analysis that confirmed the discovery of two new family members. The unexpected find of a new species of mouse lemur, Microcebus lehilahytsara, in Andasibe, a popular tourist site in Madagascar, came during research into the giant mouse lemur, Mirza coquereli. M. lehilahytsara, which diverged more than two million years ago from other mouse lemur populations, is tree-dwelling and nocturnal with short, rounded ears and a white stripe on the bridge of its nose. Its short, dense fur is bright maroon with an orange tinge on the back, head and tail, turning creamy white on its stomach. Lehilahytsara means ‘good man’ in Malagasy. The German primatologists chose this name to honor Steve Goodman, a scientist with the Field Museum in Chicago and WWF in Madagascar. The benchmark volume which he helped to edit, The Natural History of Madagascar, at 1,800 pages and weighing almost 5 kilos published last year is seen as a major boost in support for the island’s biodiversity. “Goodman’s field research in all remote parts of Madagascar has contributed enormously to our knowledge about the diversity of its unique and threatened flora and fauna,” said Kappeler. The study of the giant mouse lemur, M. coquereli, led to the revealing of another new species. Traditionally, only one species of giant mouse lemur has been recognized but the team found the populations of M. coquereli, in the west and north of the island were distinct. Comparative genetic analysis by Christian Roos confirmed the distinctiveness of the two populations and led to the description of the northern animals as a new species Mirza zaza. ‘Zaza’ is the Malagasy word for ‘child’ and was chosen because the new species is the smaller of the two Mirza species. The nocturnal creature is the size of a grey squirrel, weighs about 280 grams and has a long bushy tail, relatively small ears Feature