Rare rhino calves found in Indonesian jungle

Four calves of the world’s rarest species of rhino have been found in remote jungle on Indonesia’s Java island, giving hope to efforts to save them from extinction, an official said Tuesday.

“Four Javan rhinos of six to seven months age were seen by scientists on the beach near the jungle during a recent field survey,” Agus Primabudi, the head of the Ujung Kulon National Park in West Java, told AFP.

Alerted to the presence of humans, the baby rhinos fled into the park to where two adult rhinos aged roughly 35 to 36, believed to be their parents, were staying, Primabudi said.

Primabudi said that the birth of the four calves has given new hope that the Javan rhinos can breed in the wild at levels high enough to keep the local population alive into the future.

“The most important thing we can do is to protect their habitat so that they can breed easily,” he said.

The Javan rhino, which is distinguished by its small size, single horn and loose skin folds, is likely the most endangered large mammal on the planet, according to WWF.

Roughly 90 percent of the world’s 50 or so Javan rhinos live in Ujung Kulon park, an oasis of wilderness on the western edge of one of the world’s most densely populated islands.

The Javan rhino is classified as critically endangered by WWF and none of the animals currently live in captivity.

AFP

Long lost primate rediscovered in Indonesia

A team led by a Texas A&M University anthropologist has discovered a group of primates not seen alive in 85 years. These furry gremlin-looking creatures are about the size of a small mouse and weighing less than 2 ounces, have not been observed since they were last collected for a museum in 1921.

The pygmy tarsier, one of the planet’s smallest and rarest primates was assumed to be extinct until 2000 when two scientists studying rats accidently trapped and killed an individual. Gursky-Doyen’s team spent two months using 276 mist nets to capture the small creatures so they could be fitted with radio collars and tracked. One other individual was spotted but eluded capture.

The collars were being attached so the tarsiers’ movements could be tracked.

Tarsiers are unusual primates — the mammalian group that includes lemurs, monkeys, apes and people. The handful of tarsier species live on various Asian islands.

The Pygmy Tarsier, also known as the Mountain Tarsier or the Lesser Spectral Tarsier, is a nocturnal primate found on central Sulawesi, Indonesia, in an area with lower vegetative species diversity than the lowland tropical forests.  They are unusual among primates in that they have claws rather than finger nails.

Reuters, Mongabay, Wikipedia