A little bit of good news. It hadn't been seen since 1968. Tiny elephant shrew species, missing for 50 years, rediscovered
@gentle lemur thank you for sharing this article with us. This is good news. What is the plausibility of creating a captive breeding program for this species?
There's no need to. The surveys they have conducted so far have found the species has a relativity wide range throughout Djibouti, Somalia, and possibly Ethiopia. They have suggested to the IUCN to classify it as Least Concern.
Ah thank you for the clarification. This makes sense. They would still be cool to see and photograph in zoos.
Here's another article: Tiny elephant shrew rediscovered after 50 years. It was on the front page of the BBC news site. A small step for a sengi. A giant leap forward for sengi kind.
Some nice good news. Does anyone know what Sengi species are in zoos? I've seen one of the small grey varieties in Berlin and I recall reading a while back some of the giant black & rufous are/were in a couple of US zoos like Philadelphia....
I know of three, all of which are in European collections: Black-and-rufous Giant Sengi (Rhynchocyon petersi) - held in about 7 European collections and perhaps the same number of US collections. Round-eared Sengi (Macroscelides proboscideus) - held in about 50 European collections, and also not uncommon in private hands. Not sure if they are present in US collections however. Rufous Sengi (Elephantulus rufescens) - limited to one European collection (Cologne) but present in private hands, and breeding at a low level. A fourth species - Checkered Giant Sengi (Rhynchocyon cirnei) died out in European collections a few years ago, but *might* conceivably still be around in private hands. I know a few of the smaller species were around in private hands as of a few years ago, too.
Thanks a bunch for the info Dave. Thats a shame the checkered's have disappeared. I particularly like the giant Rhynchocyon species. I did not know people kept them privately in Europe.
