2 new species of woolly flying squirrels found in Himalayas
NEW DELHI: Two woolly flying squirrel species from the high Himalayas were discovered by scientists from Australia and China last month.
Parts of the Indian Himalayas, specially around Sikkim, may be home to these extremely rare gliding mammals. According to the Australian Museum, whose scientists were part of the team that made the discovery, the woolly flying squirrels could be over 3-feetlong and weigh over 2.5kg.
Scientists have known of the woolly flying squirrel, Eupetaurus cinereus, which is among the rarest and least studied mammals in the world, for a long time. For much of the 20th century, it was thought to be extinct, until it was rediscovered in 1994 in northern Pakistan.
But after a careful review of museum specimens and published records of Eupetaurus, scientists found that the genus occurs in three distinct regions in the Himalayas i.e. northern Pakistan and north-western India, particularly Uttarakhand; south-central Tibet, northern Sikkim and western Bhutan; and north-western Yunnan, China. Genetic and morphological comparisons of these specimens also revealed that the squirrels are distinct species, two of which were discovered now and their details published in Oxford Academic’s Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society on May 31. They have been named Tibetan woolly flying squirrel (Eupetaurus tibetensis) and Yunnan woolly flying squirrel (Eupetaurus nivamons).
“These are some of the largest squirrels in the world, so it is pretty surprising that it has taken until 2021 for them to get their scientific names…the two new species are gorgeous, softfurred squirrels that are genetically and anatomically very different from all other squirrels. And they live on top of the world — in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan Plateau,” Australian Museum Chief Scientist Professor Kristofer Helgen said in a press statement issued by the Australian Museum.
Research associate Stephen Jackson said the squirrels live at altitudes up to 4,800m (more than half the height of Mt Everest) largely in areas uninhabited by people, and are some of the least known animals in the world, with only a handful of people having seen the mammal glide. According to the paper, Eupetaurus cinereus is threatened by habitat loss, owing to large-scale clear cutting of forests, particularly the destruction of high-elevation pine woodlands. “There is very little research on flying squirrels. We hope to study them properly,” Sameer Bajaru, small mammal expert at Bombay Natural History Society, said.