A University of Fort Hare (UFH) zoology team has led international researchers in their discovery of a new bushbaby genus living on the east coast of Africa.
The team will soon have its research paper published in an esteemed zoological journal, making the find official.
Alice Zoology Department research Professor Judith Masters, who has been researching the diversity, evolution, distribution and conservation of bushbabies since 1978, said the discovery was important because it had been driven by climate and environmental change.
“It is very exciting, because the last time a new genus was discovered in bushbabies was in 1872. We have discovered that the biodiversity of bushbabies is greater than we previously thought.
The professor, who led the project along with UFH field researcher, Dr Fabien Génin, said the dwarf bushbabies of the east coast of Africa have had a long history independent of the dwarf bushbabies (Galagos) of West Africa.
She said the team had first identified the new group of bushbabies in Zanzibar.
“It was a study based on using vocal signals to identify species and we did many recordings there. It was the first time I had heard calls from this bushbaby group.
“When we came back to South Africa we were pretty sure they would occur in this country because the habitat is the same in northern KwaZulu-Natal, so we went to look and sure as nuts we heard them calling. We knew from the structure of their call it was the same genus.”
She said the little nocturnal primates have a different appearance to the nag apies of Pretoria, with longer noses, chocolate brown colouring, black eye rings and ears and a bright white stripe down the nose.
“They also have a mushy tail that ends in a black tip.”
Masters said the identification of a new genus on Africa’s east coast was significant because climate change was responsible not only for extinction of species, but also for the origination of new lineages.
“The new information indicates that the eastern dwarf bushbabies separated from the lesser bushbabies or nag apies around 15 million years ago – right around the time that the first grasslands started to evolve. The nag apies became adapted to the savannah woodlands that we see north of Pretoria. The dwarf bushbabies became adapted to the sand forest of the eastern coast and can be seen in Tembe Elephant Park and the Tshanini Community Reserve in northern KZN.”
“We have only just set up a field site where we can work on them regularly,” Master said.
She said the team recently had their paper accepted by the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society and would be published soon. “This means that from now on when anyone discusses this group of bushbabies, they have to use our genus name”. — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
UFH zoology team leads group to bushbaby find
The team will soon have its research paper published in an esteemed zoological journal, making the find official.
Alice Zoology Department research Professor Judith Masters, who has been researching the diversity, evolution, distribution and conservation of bushbabies since 1978, said the discovery was important because it had been driven by climate and environmental change.
“It is very exciting, because the last time a new genus was discovered in bushbabies was in 1872. We have discovered that the biodiversity of bushbabies is greater than we previously thought.
The professor, who led the project along with UFH field researcher, Dr Fabien Génin, said the dwarf bushbabies of the east coast of Africa have had a long history independent of the dwarf bushbabies (Galagos) of West Africa.
She said the team had first identified the new group of bushbabies in Zanzibar.
“It was a study based on using vocal signals to identify species and we did many recordings there. It was the first time I had heard calls from this bushbaby group.
“When we came back to South Africa we were pretty sure they would occur in this country because the habitat is the same in northern KwaZulu-Natal, so we went to look and sure as nuts we heard them calling. We knew from the structure of their call it was the same genus.”
She said the little nocturnal primates have a different appearance to the nag apies of Pretoria, with longer noses, chocolate brown colouring, black eye rings and ears and a bright white stripe down the nose.
“They also have a mushy tail that ends in a black tip.”
Masters said the identification of a new genus on Africa’s east coast was significant because climate change was responsible not only for extinction of species, but also for the origination of new lineages.
“The new information indicates that the eastern dwarf bushbabies separated from the lesser bushbabies or nag apies around 15 million years ago – right around the time that the first grasslands started to evolve. The nag apies became adapted to the savannah woodlands that we see north of Pretoria. The dwarf bushbabies became adapted to the sand forest of the eastern coast and can be seen in Tembe Elephant Park and the Tshanini Community Reserve in northern KZN.”
“We have only just set up a field site where we can work on them regularly,” Master said.
She said the team recently had their paper accepted by the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society and would be published soon. “This means that from now on when anyone discusses this group of bushbabies, they have to use our genus name”. — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
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