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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Susie P. Gonzalez
March 6, 2008
Trinity University Biology Professor Among Scientists Who Discovered New Species of Giant Elephant-Shrew
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David Ribble and a grey-faced sengi |
SAN ANTONIO – Being at the right place at the right time turned out to be a biologist’s dream come true for Trinity University Professor David O. Ribble. He was in Africa in 2006 on academic leave as professor and chair of biology at Trinity when a group of researchers began an expedition in Tanzania to document photographs taken previously of the region’s forest mammals.
Camera traps had revealed an elephant-shrew that did not look familiar to the scientists. As the expedition progressed, the team invited Professor Ribble to join them in the search for what ultimately was determined to be a rare and new species of elephant-shrews, also known as the grey-faced sengi. “Like many scientific discoveries, this one was serendipitous,” he says.
The discovery of the new species was announced in the Feb. 4 issue of The Journal of Zoology. Professor Ribble is listed as a collaborator and expedition member. He described the Ndundulu Forest in Tanzania’s Udzungwa Mountains as a “hotspot of biodiversity,” but it is the only place where the grey-faced sengi (Rhynchocyon udzungwensis) is known to live. The animals are small, furry mammals that eat mostly insects and are monogamous. They were first named elephant-shrews because of their long, flexible snouts. Professor Ribble describes them as looking like an anteater and running like an antelope. The newest species is the largest documented so far, weighing about 1.5 pounds or about 25 percent more than any other known sengi, researchers said.
Professor Ribble recalls the early days of the expedition, when a dead grey-faced sengi was found on a mountain trail. Since it wasn’t the kind of specimen scientists wanted, they began setting up nets to catch more animals. “We set up loose nets on the forest floor, but we didn’t know they would be so big. The nets weren’t big enough,” he recalls. In fact, Professor Ribble was scouting for sengis when one literally fell from the forest canopy and darted between his legs to freedom. Ultimately, natives of Tanzania who were helping the scientists successfully snared four animals.
The lead scientists in the discovery were Galen Rathbun of the California Academy of Sciences and Francesco Rovero of the Trento Museum of Natural Sciences in Italy. Rathbun noted that the grey-faced sengi is the first new species of giant elephant-shrew to be discovered in 126 years. Additional collaborators included Andrew Perkin of Oxford Brookes, Trevor Jones of Anglia Ruskin University, and a team from the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group. Funding was provided by the National Geographic Society, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, and the Trento Museum of Natural Sciences in Italy.
For more information on the mammal discovery, contact Trinity’s Office of University Communications at 210-999-8406.
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© 2008 Trinity University