Researchers Discover Second Native Hawaiian Bat an extinct species to add the lists as a result of human colonization of the islands

The Hawaiian Islands have long been thought to support just one endemic land mammal, the Hawaiian hoary bat. But new fossil evidence indicates that a second, very different species of bat lived alongside the hoary bat for thousands of years before going extinct shortly after humans arrived on the islands. 

The research, published this week in the journal American Museum Novitates, describes the mysterious bat, named Synemporion keana, whose remains were first discovered in a lava tube more than 30 years ago.

“Besides the animals that humans have introduced to the islands, like rats and pigs, the only mammals that we’ve known to be native to Hawaii are a monk seal, which is primarily aquatic, and the hoary bat,” said Nancy Simmons, a co-author on the paper and curator-in-charge of the American Museum of Natural History’s Department of Mammalogy. “So finding that there actually was a different bat—a second native land mammal for the islands—living there for such a long period of time was quite a surprise.”

                              The skull of the holotype of Synemporion keana (A), compared with the Hawaiian hoary bat (B).

Synemporion keana first appeared in the fossil record on the islands around 320,000 years ago and survived until at least 1,100 years ago, coexisting alongside the hoary bat for several thousand years. It is known that Synemporion keana was a vesper, or evening bat, but its array of features means that identifying its closest relatives has been challenging. Simmons and her colleagues hope that future work with ancient DNA extracted from the fossils might help them solve the mystery.

 “This extinct bat really is something new, not just a slight variation on a theme of a known genus,” Simmons said. “The new bat contains a mosaic of features from taxa seen on many different continents.”

                                               Skeleton of Synemporion keana embedded in the wall of of Māhiehie Cave on Maui  (Hawaii Islands)

The authors think that the extinction of Synemporion keana may have been a direct or indirect result of human colonization of the islands and the invasive non-native species that accompanied human explorers and settlers.

“It seems possible that the reduction of native forests and associated insects after human colonization of the islands contributed not just to the extinction of plants, birds, and invertebrates, but also to the extinction of this endemic bat,” said Francis Howarth, an entomologist at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu and co-author on the paper.

Presumed Extinct Javan Elephants May Have Been Found Again - In Borneo

The Borneo pygmy elephant may not be native to Borneo after all. Instead, the population could be the last survivors of the Javan elephant race - accidentally saved from extinction by the Sultan of Sulu centuries ago, a new publication suggests. The origins of the pygmy elephants, found in a range extending from the north-east of the island into the Heart of Borneo, have long been shrouded in mystery. Their looks and behavior differ from other Asian elephants and scientists have questioned why they never dispersed to other parts of the island. 

General Information

Population: There is approximately 1,500 pygmy elephants.

Height: Pygmy elephants usually grow to 8.2 - 9.8 feet (average Asian elephants grow to around 13 feet). 

Habitats: Elephants tend to live in grasslands and forests.

Life-span: Elephants normally live for up to 60 years in the wild and more than 80 years in captivity.

Gestation period: Pygmy elephants gestation period is between 19-22 months (almost 2 years!).

Family life: Pygmy elephants are usually led by a female (matriarch) in small groups of about eight, families consist of mothers, daughters, sisters and young males (occasionally an adult male). The adult males usually travel individually. The males sometimes gather in temporary herds. 

Diet: Elephants are forest herbivores. One elephant can eat up to 330 lbs. of vegetation per day. They eat mostly palms grasses and wild bananas. They obtain minerals from salt licks. 

 Color: All elephants usually range from light grey to dark brown.

The Borneo pygmy elephant may not be native to Borneo after all. Instead, the population could be the last survivors of the Javan elephant race – accidentally saved from extinction by the Sultan of Sulu centuries ago, a new publication suggests.

The origins of the pygmy elephants, found in a range extending from the north-east of the island into the Heart of Borneo, have long been shrouded in mystery. Their looks and behaviour differ from other Asian elephants and scientists have questioned why they never dispersed to other parts of the island.

But a new paper published supports a long-held local belief that the elephants were brought to Borneo centuries ago by the Sultan of Sulu, now in the Philippines, and later abandoned in the jungle. 

The Sulu elephants, in turn, are thought to have originated in Java.

 

Javan elephants became extinct some time in the period after Europeans arrived in South-East Asia. Elephants on Sulu, never considered native to the island, were hunted out in the 1800s.

“Elephants were shipped from place to place across Asia many hundreds of years ago, usually as gifts between rulers,” said Mr Shim Phyau Soon, a retired Malaysian forester whose ideas on the origins of the elephants partly inspired the current research. “It’s exciting to consider that the forest-dwelling Borneo elephants may be the last vestiges of a subspecies that went extinct on its native Java Island, in Indonesia, centuries ago.”

If the Borneo pygmy elephants are in fact elephants from Java, an island more than 1,200 km (800 miles) south of their current range, it could be the first known elephant translocation in history that has survived to modern times, providing scientists with critical data from a centuries-long experiment.

Scientists solved part of the mystery in 2003, when DNA testing by Columbia University and WWF ruled out the possibility that the Borneo elephants were from Sumatra or mainland Asia, where the other Asian subspecies are found, leaving either Borneo or Java as the most probable source.

 

The new paper, “Origins of the Elephants Elephas Maximus L. of Borneo,” published in this month’s Sarawak Museum Journal shows that there is no archaeological evidence of a long-term elephant presence on Borneo.

“Just one fertile female and one fertile male elephant, if left undisturbed in enough good habitat, could in theory end up as a population of 2,000 elephants within less than 300 years,” said Junaidi Payne of WWF, one of the paper’s co-authors. “And that may be what happened in practice here.”

There are perhaps just 1,000 of the elephants in the wild, mostly in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

WWF satellite tracking has shown they prefer the same lowland habitat that is being increasingly cleared for timber rubber and palm oil plantations. Their possible origins in Java make them even more a conservation priority.

“If they came from Java, this fascinating story demonstrates the value of efforts to save even small populations of certain species, often thought to be doomed,” said Dr Christy Williams, coordinator of WWF’s Asian elephant and rhino programme. “It gives us the courage to propose such undertakings with the small remaining populations of critically endangered Sumatran rhinos and Javan rhinos, by translocating a few to better habitats to increase their numbers. It has worked for Africa’s southern white rhinos and Indian rhinos, and now we have seen it may have worked for the Javan elephant, too.”

Conservation: Conflict with Humans

The primary threat to these elephants is the loss of continuous forests. Mammals of their size require large areas to find sufficient food. The large blocks of forests they require are fragmented by encroachment and conversion of natural forests to commercial plantations. Logging, expanding agriculture, and palm oil plantations are reducing contact between sub populations, as well as shrinking the forest area available for each sub-population.

Shrinking forests bring the elephants into more frequent contact with people, increasing human -elephant conflict in the region. New oil palm plantations in the area mean more human settlements, with some people setting illegal snares to catch small game. In the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, it is estimated that 20% of resident elephants have sustained injuries from these snares.

 The catastrophic decline of more species of the big area of South East Asia are in the deforestation, palm oil plantations and poachers.

The Saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) is a large wild ox , first described by scientists in 1993, listed as Critically Endangered (IUCN), and its global population is currently estimated at 250-300.

The Saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) is a large wild ox whose global range comprises only the Annamite Mountains of central Vietnam and Lao PDR (Laos). This unique animal, first described by scientists in 1993, was at one point thought to be related to goats, but recent research has identified it as a "primitive" member of the same evolutionary lineage as wild cattle. Listed as Critically Endangered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the 85 kg (200 lb) Saola has yet to be seen in the wild by researchers, and its global population is currently estimated at 250-300. The primary threat to Saola is hunting, chiefly from incidental by-catch in snares set for other animals, but also from professional hunters interested in the animal's horns as decorative objects. Little is known of the Saola's tracks and signs, distribution, abundance, habitat use, diet, behavior, and genetics. What information that does exist comes primarily from indigenous peoples living within its range. Since its description, the Saola has rapidly become a flagship species for Vietnamese biodiversity and conservation initiatives.

Global priority conservation landscape for Saola (Quang Nam and Thua Thien-Hue provinces, central Vietnam).

Photo of Saola taken with a camera trap.

European Commission - Social Forestry and Nature Conservation

Because so little is known of the Saola's numbers and natural history, field-based research efforts are urgently needed to collect data on the species' distribution and behavior and to develop reliable methods for detecting and monitoring its presence. Scientists from the CBC are collaborating with World Wildlife Fund's Greater Mekong Programme and Vietnam's Forest Protection Department on the first and as yet only initiative researching and implementing Saola conservation measures. This work is being carried out in the rugged, mountainous landscape lying along the border of central Vietnam's Quang Nam and Thua Thien-Hue provinces, an area recognized as the global priority landscape for Saola conservation.

The project has identified four core areas within the landscape, each of which has a relatively high probability that Saola currently live in them. Beginning in March of 2008 the project will implement an intensive, six-month long camera-trapping initiative in these high probability Saola areas. Camera-trapping, the deployment of remotely-triggered flash cameras in areas difficult to access, has been effective regionally and nationally in detecting the presence of secretive and rare mammals such as tigers. This is currently the best technique for determining Saola distribution since there are as yet no descriptions of tracks, dung, scrapings, or other markings and field signs that can be unequivocally attributed to Saola. Analyzing tissue samples collected from trophies will allow researchers to estimate genetic diversity and the extent of population fragmentation across the landscape.

In addition to camera-trapping initiatives, interviews with local forest users will be important to gather additional information on Saola occurrence and possible field signs, as well as information on hunting pressures. Although not specifically targeted, Saola can be caught and killed by snares set out for other, smaller animals. To be effective, Saola conservation efforts must address traditional hunting practices and other forest resource by local people and incorporate the needs, traditions, and aspirations of their communities, largely composed of ethnic minorities. These issues will be addressed through integrating maps of Saola distribution and natural resource harvest patterns with local forest management traditions to develop sustainable, community-based forest management.

Training session for camera trapping in Central Vietnam.

This project will also benefit other unique organisms that live in the central Annamites. The Saola is one of a group of poorly known, endemic ungulates restricted to the Annamite Mountains, including the large-antlered muntjac (Muntiacus vuquangensis) and the Roosevelts' muntjac species complex (M. rooseveltorum, M. truongsonensis, and others). 

The Annamite Range is the region's dominant geographic upland formation, running 1,200 km along the Vietnam-Lao border and into southern Vietnam. Peaks range from 1,000 m up to 2,200 m; evergreen forests cover the wetter eastern slopes and evergreen and semi-evergreen forests the drier western slopes. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

In addition to these large hoofed mammals, the Annamites support many endemic primates, birds, amphibians, orchids, and conifers, suggesting that the region has experienced a unique evolutionary trajectory. In late 2007 two new protected areas designed specifically to conserve Saola and their habitats were established in Quang Nam and Thua Thien-Hue provinces. These efforts will help to conserve not just the Saola but the globally significant plant and animal communities of which they are a part.

Center for Biodiversity and Conservation CBC of the American Museum of Natural History