The biggest discovery of new mammals in a single paper since 1931 has been published by researchers after a decade of documenting and observing Indonesian shrews.
There are 14 new endemic species of the shrew. The team was able to identify a total of 21 shrew species on the island.
The data shows that the shrew diversity on Sulawesi is three times higher than any other island in the region.
Jake Esselstyn is a mammalogist from Louisiana State University.
There is a big thrill when we discover one new species at a time. For the first several years, we couldn't figure out how many species there were.
Shrews are a diverse group with more than 400 known species.
The Indonesian islands are the most easterly point for the Crocidura in Africa and Eurasia.
In a tropical location and with a variety of habitat types that encourage biodiversity, the island of Sulawesi is a relatively large and mountainous island. The researchers say that the various elevations created isolated islands of tropical forested mountains in a sea of low, dry habitat that contributed to the large number of shrew species.
The 14 new species were identified by combining the physical characteristics of the 14 new species, such as tail length, coloring, hair length, skull size, and so on, with the results of DNA sequencing.
The researchers wrote in their paper that the availability of large series of specimen with genetic data allowed them to detect subtle differences in quantitative and qualitative traits.
The new species are: Crocidura microelongata, C. quasielongata, C. australis, C. pallida, C. baletei, and C. mediocris.
The researchers say that a massive societal effort is needed to improve the cataloging of species worldwide.
Understanding the differences between species is important for accurate investigations such as mapping the evolution of an animal or understanding the development of animal communities.
Esselstyn says thatonomy serves as the foundation of so much biological research. Our capacity to understand and preserve life is severely limited when we don't know how many species there are.
We need to document and name that diversity. If we can make discoveries of many new species in mammals, imagine what it would be like in less well-known organisms.
The Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History has published the research.
