New Clouded Leopard species

23-03-2007

grantsmb,

I am told that the quagga in some circles is considered merely a variant within the main zebra group. Whereas in the past it was considered a full species, these days when it has become ecologically extinct, voices are going up it may be a mutant gene ..........!!!

23-03-2007

Tell me more....

Please elaborate if you can. The current Quagga project is based on the fact that the DNA proved it to be a race of Plains Zebra- no more, no less. I for one had always believed that it was- the shape of body and head in the London Zoo photos indicated this quite clearly (at least to me).

There is certainly a great deal of variation in the markings of the 23 or so museum speciments left around the World. Some have brown bodies with no evident stripes, others have broken patterns of striping on the mid back and saddle area. Could it mean Quaggas occurred as a mutant found among other Plains Zebras in South Africa, rather than as a true race apart?

All very confusing but I still hope that Rau's death won't stop further progress with the project. Look particularly at the neck and head stripes of most of the museum Quaggas, or the London Quagga photos- the narrow white 'stripes' are more like the markings on a Bongo Antelope than the broad black and white bands on other Plains zebras. How did this come about I wonder? And the body colour- quite a dark chestnut brown. To my mind it wasn't just a 'reduction of stripes' on the body- they had a totally different pattern and markings to other Plains zebras. And the 'Project' zebras are nowhere near approaching this appearance yet.

14-02-2008

Chromosomal analysis has got a lot to answer for; as far as it's concerned, the Night Monkey or Douroucouli of Sth. America is actually 10 separate species (even though visually they all look identical.)

While we should give credence to this "splitting" of species for scholarly correctness, for practical zoo and conservation breeding purposes, we should go with the old definition of a species (If two animals can breed together and have viable, fertile offspring then they are a species.)

With the massive number of species which need assistance by captive breeding, the world's zoos should not be nit-picking and mucking around using up resources breeding separate races (here comes the bombshell) and that includes the Sumatran Tiger!

(HERESY! CRUCIFY HIM!)

14-02-2008

quite simply ara - they are not "nit picking". zoos usually breed genetically pure animals unless their is not enough of a founderbase to support such initiatives. in those cases, should the species be rare in captivity - the animals are often hybridised with others of their species, regardless of race, to form a breeding program.

a good example of such is clouded leopards. who are of mixed ancestry in zoos.

subspecies are preserved - if possible.

thus it seems that your suggesting we destroy successful and important breeding programs like that for the sumatran tiger just for the hell of it.

14-02-2008

One of the more common mixings that I see is the combining of orangutans from both borneo and sumatra. The offspring in many zoos are a mixture, therefore diluting the species of ape.

14-02-2008

but the problem is being resolved snowleopard.

almost all good zoos have completely phased-out the practice. and no longer pair borneans and sumatrans or breed from hybrids. certainly, due to the longevity of the species there are now an aweful lot of "non-breeding" (and sadly often unwanted) hybrid orangs in the zoo world, but as a general rule all good zoos have either switched to breeding just one species (or subspecies) or such as in the case of singapore zoo, has a separate breeding program for each.

14-02-2008

zebras and giraffe are two species that are hybridised here in Australia. Giraffes I can understand and as for zebras, I can only think that it is because it is so expensive to import new blood into the country.

14-02-2008

Isn't a zebra x giraffe hybrid called an okapi?

14-02-2008

That's a good one Chris!

Okay I'll let you all keep your Sumatran tigers!
I just said that to be outrageous, and to get the conversation flowing.

I still feel, however, that species are more important than races, and I would rather see, for example, 5 species saved than 5 races of one species and the other 4 theoretical species slide into oblivion.........

zebra crosses and hybrids.
14-02-2008

Do you mean different species are being crossed e.g. Grants x Grevy's or just the different subspecies/races of the Grants? (I'm not sure if there are Grevy or Mountain zebras in Oz?)

I'm not sure that I've ever heard of any hybrids(which they would be) between the different 'true' species of zebras before...

14-02-2008

No, there are no Grevy's zebras or Mountain zebras here in Australia. I think Jay was referring to Chapman's and Grant's.

15-02-2008

Chapman's and Grant's are subspecies of the more common zebra aren't they?

Time for my post (yes it has something to do with Penelopides hornbills):

Ara, there are many problems with Hybridisation, particularly with the Penelopides hornbills. Now, I have to admit that there have been lots of problems with their classification, and it is not yet clear whether we have 2 species or 5, but there is a great problem with cross breeding of these species.

The Main problem comes from the philippine species. The sulawesi species (penelopides exharatus) has long been classified as a separate species for so long, as it is so different.

There are four philippine hornbill species, and many more subspecies:

Mindanao (affinis), subspecies- Affinis (Mindanao subspecies)
Samaerenis (samar subspecies)
Basilianicus (Basilanian subspecies)

Luzon (manillae), subspecies-Manilae (Luzon subspecies)
Subnigra (Polillo and Patnangonan subspecies)

Mindoro (mindoroenis)

Visayan (Panini) (There were two subspecies for the Visayan tarictic hornbill, but one became extinct-the ticao tarictic-it is the only form of hornbill to go extinct in recent history)

The problems have arisen with the Luzon, Visayan and Mindanao(Samar subspecies). The Luzon, Samar and Visayan tarictic hornbills have all been successfully bred, both with their own species and with others.

Chester had a fine example of a hybrid tarictic hornbill pair. There was a male, of unknown subspecies (came from Avifauna in 2001) and a female who was known for sure to be a hybrid (arrived in 2000 following the closure of the bird garden in Rode). The zoo bred from this pair, but as one was a known hybrid, the chicks were hybrids too. Then it was decided, in the early 2000's, to not breed hybrid tarictic hornbills.

Many zoos still keep birds of unknown subspecies. The pair at Frankfurt for example (I've only seen pictures of the male). The male has very short blackish red beak. He is listed on ISIS as penelopides panini subnigra (now an invalid subspecies, should be penelopides manilllae subnigra). This is definitely not true. He has no noticeable yellowish white stripes along the bill for instance, and his plumage is far too dull.

Overall, these birds need to be phased out, and then new birds, of known origin, need to be brought in. This can then start building up a captive population of the birds, especially as the Mindoro and Visayan species are endangered in the wild.

The Mindoro at the moment is the species most at risk, as there is very little known about it, it is extremely rare, and unlike other penelopides hornbills, there is no sexual dimorphism, so it is a lot harder to work out how many birds are remaining in the wild.

Thanks for reading (if you got down here!)

15-02-2008

A hybrid zebra was born at London Zoo in 1915. The result of a mating between a Mountain zebra and a Chapman's zebra.

Like you, I did not know there had been any.

15-02-2008

Writhedhornbill; I know you are only a young guy, but I'm totally impressed when I read your posts re Hornbills. How do you know all this information? My guess is you have a great set of text-books, an enquiring mind and boundless enthusiasm for hornbills.

One day you must write the ultimate book on them, illustrated (I hope) with your own photos.

More importantly, I understand what you and patrick are getting at in your posts; that to pointlessly hybridise would be to lead nowhere, and "waste" the animals we DO have.

I'm going to be a stirrer here again, however, and say that, if for instance orang-utans became extinct on Sumatra, and if by some miracle we could later reintroduce orangs to some part of Sumatra, would the world really fall off its axis if we reintroduced either Bornean or hybrid orangs? Undesirable in a perfect world, I know, but this is far from a perfect world.

15-02-2008

to put it simply ara, no it wouldn't. the differences in the ecology of the rainforests of sumatra and borneo is really not that different. in fact, not so long ago it would have been one and the same, inhabited by just the one form of orangutan.

however. their are noticeable differences between sumatran and bornean orangutans. and i think thats an interesting and beautiful thing. like many subspecies they are subtle differences but noticeable nonetheless.

so why not preserve them if we can? its taken tens of thousands of years for these differences to evolve, don't you think its a shame to just delete them?

in animals the subspecific differences are quite distinct. do you imagine that siberian tigers would be well suited to the rainforests of sumatra or vice versa? in these case the ability to preserve intact races of these animals has direct consequences to conservation initiatives. hybrid tigers would not necessarily be able to survive in these extreme ranges. the differences are so distinct, that essentially sumatran and siberian tigers be best treated in this context as separate species (in fact genetic studies hint at the same).

plains zebras and their diminishing stripes across their distribution from north to south form another example. clearly, there is something more beneficial in this for them. they have evolved these differences as a response to environment making each form more adapted to its local habitat than any other. mixing things up is just putting them back
a few hundred thousand years of evolution. we are giving wildlife a thrashing at present. minute as they may be, do we really need to add any additional pressures at all?

but lastly ara, we preserve subspecies because whilst the difference to two rhinoceros hornbill populations may not seem that interesting to you - there is some hornbill buff (i can think of one) who relishes in this micro-diversity.

subspecies specific captive breeding isn't really compromising breeding programs. in some cases all the worlds captive population becomes a purebred race. but when other options are unavailable all become a "generic" example of the species. sometimes it varies from region to region.

have a look at whats happening with guereza's.
globally, one subspecies is viable in zoos - the mt kenya form. however this race only represents maybe a third of all guereza's in captivity. most other zoo colobus are of unknown, hybridised or different origins. essentially only two populations are viable - purebred mt kenya guereza and hybrid guereza.

we don't need to mix the two yet (in australia we are however) so generally zoos don't. but we are not "wasting" the few hundred other colobus in zoos.

what i'm saying is, zoos, don't compromise programs by not hybridising subspecies. but they do look at it as a last resort. and for good reason in my mind.