G'day All,
There is a report of a discovery of a new fox like mammal in Borneo. The
report is found in the British Independent Newspaper on:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=636529
A copy of the report is found below.
Regards,
Chris Coleborn
_______________________
New species of mammal found in Borneo
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor and Jan McGirk, South-east Asia
correspondent
08 May 2005
Scientists believe they have found a wholly new species of mammal deep
in the heart of one of the richest, least studied and most endangered
wildlife areas on earth.
The discovery of an apparently new kind of fox in the dense forests of
central Borneo is an extremely rare event. Only a handful of new mammals
have been discovered in the whole world over the past 70 years. It comes as
hopes are rising that the forests - which are expected to be cut down within
the next 15 years - may be saved at the last minute. The Indonesian
government has recently halted logging in an important national park and has
begun preparations with the governments of Malaysia and Brunei about
establishing a 220,000 kmsq conservation area.
Borneo - the world's third largest island - has possibly the most
diverse wildlife on the globe. By a conservative estimate, it is home to
15,000 species of plant; one 52 hectare plot alone has 1,175 different kinds
of tree - a world record. Six thousand of them are found nowhere else, as
are about 160 of its fish species, 30 of its birds and 25 of its mammals.
Last week WWF reported that 361 entirely new species - 260 insects, 50
plants, 30 freshwater fish, seven frogs, six lizards, five crabs, two snakes
and a toad - have been discovered over the past decade, a rate of three a
month. But the fox, which has come to light only after the report was
written, is a far bigger find. Discoveries of mammals are extremely rare.
Six were found in the 1990s in remote forests in Vietnam - a rhino, a
rabbit, three deer and a primate - but they were the first since the
discovery of the kouprey in the area in 1937.
But all of these are herbivores, making the finding of a carnivorous
fox even more extraordinary. The animal - which was caught on an automatic
infra-red camera, set up in the forest of the Kayam Menterong National
Park - is foxy red all over, with no white markings, and a bushy tail. It
has slightly extended back legs, suggesting that it may spend part of its
time up trees.
Dr Stuart Chapman, of WWF Indonesia, says that the two pictures taken
by the automatic camera had been shown to scientists and the Jakarta Natural
History Museum, who believed it was a new species. Local hunters had also
failed to recognise it. But no one can be certain until the finding is
officially published, and possibly until an expedition is mounted to search
for it.
Conservationists are increasingly anxious about the fate of Borneo,
described by Charles Darwin as "one great, wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse
made by nature for herself". Illegal logging is devastating its forests; the
World Bank predicts that all of them, outside protected areas, will have
been cut down by 2020.
But three weeks ago the Indonesian government stopped logging in the
key Betung Kerihun National Park, by closing a nearby border crossing which
had been used to take the timber into Sarawak, the Malaysian part of Borneo.
And it has so far stuck to its decision despite intense pressure from
logging interests.
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