A team led by a Texas A&M University anthropologist has discovered a group of primates not seen alive in 85 years. The pygmy tarsiers, furry gremlin like creatures about the size of a small mouse and weighing less than 2 ounces, have not been observed since they were collected for a museum in 1921. Several scientists believed they were extinct until two Indonesian scientists trapping rats in the highlands of Sulawesi accidentally trapped and killed a pygmy tarsier in 2000.
Unique feature Sharon Gursky-Doyen and Nanda Grow trapped three of the nocturnal creatures in Indonesia in August 2008. The pygmy tarsiers possess fingers with claws instead of nails, which Gursky-Doyen says is a distinguishing feature of this species, and distinguish them from nearly all other primates which have nails and not claws. The claws may be an adaptation to their mossy environment, she believes.
Pygmy tarsier claws. The only primates not to have fingernails. Photo credit Texas A&M University.
Radio tracking Over a two-month period, two males and one female were trapped on Mt. Rore Katimbo in Lore Lindu National Park in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. The scientists used approximately 276 mist nets to capture the tarsiers, and then attached radio collars to their necks so they could track their movements.
The moist mountainous terrain at heights of 7,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level proved tricky to navigate, and the nocturnal nature of the animals added another element of danger.
“There are still primates waiting to be discovered in Indonesia. Not all have been seen, heard and described.” Said Gursky-Doyen.
Gursky-Doyen’s research was funded by National Geographic Society, Conservation International Primate Action Fund, Primate Conservation Incorporated and Texas A&M University.
Born in the Netherlands on 23-04-1940 and passed away in Bali on 25-05-2015. Farelli was the pseudonym of a remarkable man who was infused with an obsessive desire to create things that did not yet exist. Born in the Netherlands in 1940 Dolf Versteegh left his home country in 1990 in order to start a new life on the Island of Bali. Without any formal education he reinvented himself as an architect, as a designer of furniture, as a sculptor and as a writer.
As a teenager Dolf spent only three years in High School but he kept studying history and the natural world all his life and during his last 25 years on Bali he revealed himself not only as versatile artist but also as a formidable scholar of biology.
Farelli was a prolific creator of web content and what he has left behind will remain standing as a great monument to his creative spirit, his ingenuity and his never-ending search for knowledge.