A new species of mouse lemur describes from Madagascar, considered the tiniest primate in the world. Scientists fear that almost all of Madagascar’s 107 other native species of lemurs are at risk of extinction. Jonah’s mouse lemurs are found in a region where undergoing massive deforestation, which makes them especially vulnerable to habitat loss, an area half the size of Yosemite National Park.
Microcebus jonahi is named for Jonah Ratsimbazafy, a leading Madagascar’s primatologist who dedicated his life to the study and preservation of the endemic lemurs of Madagascar. A team led by Ute Radespiel at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover in Germany and Dominik Schüßler at the University of Hildesheim named the for prominent Malagasy primatologist.
Radespiel said, “Although the Jonah’s mouse lemur has only just been scientifically described, it is unfortunately already in danger of extinction.”
According to the IUCN, almost every lemurs is at risk of dying, and one-third are already critically endangered. Mouse lemurs are shy and nocturnal, has big eyes about the size of a fist, and is no heavier than a tennis ball. The newly described species is larger than the average mouse lemur. It has a reddish-brown body, small ears, thick fur, and prominent white stripes that run between the eyes and disappears at the forehead.
Most mouse lemurs are not easily recognizable by their small personality and nocturnal nature. Keeping all 108 species of lemurs known from the abyss of extinction is a huge task. A team of 29 scientists from six countries helped to identify the new Lemur species.
The first individual of M. jonahi was captured for sampling, back in 2006, it was let go without being identified as another species. Over the past few years, the effort has accelerated as more information about lemurs’ genetic signature has been obtained from samples collected over 10 years. In the early 1990s, only two species were known. From the late 1990s to the present, there have been a number of new studies describing the new mouse lemur species. By 2016, that number of species had grown to 24.
Gabriele Sgarlata, a population geneticist at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Portugal said, “Those species were mostly defined based on genetic evidence from mitochondrial DNA.” “There are also scientists looking at the primates and lemurs more from a morphological point of view.
Madagascar’s forests are rapidly disappearing. With deforestation accelerating from 2005 to 2014, the country lost about 45% of its forests from 1953 to 2014. Radespiel said, “Whenever local resources are gone when the forests are gone, the species is doomed to extinction.”
It is expected, intensify fragmentation of the forest area of the region where M. jonahi is found, stranding, limit access to food, and narrow their genetic diversity.
Reference
Schüßler, D., Blanco, M. B., Salmona, J., Poelstra, J., Andriambeloson, J. B., Miller, A., … Radespiel, U. (2020). Ecology and morphology of mouse lemurs (Microcebus spp.) in a hotspot of microendemism in northeastern Madagascar, with the description of a new species. American Journal of Primatology. doi:10.1002/ajp.23180
Schüßler, D., Mantilla-Contreras, J., Stadtmann, R., Ratsimbazafy, J. H., & Radespiel, U. (2020). Identification of crucial stepping stone habitats for biodiversity conservation in northeastern Madagascar using remote sensing and comparative predictive modeling. Biodiversity and Conservation, 29(7), 2161-2184. doi:10.1007/s10531-020-01965-z
Cover Photo – A Jonah’s mouse lemur (M. jonahi) by Dominik Schüßler.
