Two Amazing New Species of Flying Lemurs Discovered
The identity of the closest group to primates after man has been one of hot debate, but recent research using new molecular and genomic data has revealed that that one species of flying lemurs — called colugos — is actually three, dating back millions of years, and the next closest group to primates, the order of mammals that includes monkeys, apes, and humans.
Photo Norman Lim / National University of Singapore
While flying lemurs aren’t actually lemurs or monkeys and don’t even really fly, they are incredible gliders going from treetop to treetop in Malaysia forests by extending special skin fold membranes — or patagium — that stretches from the neck to the forelimbs, back to the hind limbs, and finally to the tail to form a flat parachute-like body, soaring over long distances of up to 450 feet (136 meters) with minimal loss of height.
A colugo gliding from tree to tree at dusk uses its patagium for support and resembles nothing so much as a furry kite.
Colugos are fairly large for a tree-dwelling mammal — at about 14 to 16 inches (35 to 40 centimeters) in length and 2 to 4 pounds (1 to 2 kilos) in weight, they’re comparable to a medium-sized possum or a very large squirrel. They have moderately long, slender limbs of equal length front and rear, a medium-length tail, and a relatively light build. Photo Mambabay
The head is small, with large, front-focused eyes for excellent binocular vision, and small, rounded ears. When born, the Colugo weighs only about 1.2 ounces (35 grams) and do not reach adult size for 2 to 3 years.
Up to now, scientists recognized only 2 colugo species — the Sunda colugo (Galeopterus variegatus) and the Philippine colugo (Cynocephalus volans).
The Sunda colugo lives only in Indochina and Sundaland, an area of Asia that includes the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra and Java, and many smaller islands.
A team of researchers led by Webb Miller, a professor of biology and computer science and engineering at the Penn State University, analyzed DNA (genetic material) from Sunda colugos living on the Malay Peninsula Borneo and Java.
Photo Norman Lim / National University of Singapore
The team screened a set of 197,322 known exons — areas of the human genome that code for proteins — looking for insertions or deletions — collectively called “indels” — which are rare genetic changes.
The researchers then analyzed the changes to see which indels were shared by which groups. Seven rare genetic changes showed a close relationship between primates and colugos. To confirm this conclusion, the team turned to a second approach using genomic data.
The genetic differences were large enough to suggest the colugos living on each island had evolved into distinct species, the split between them which may have occurred as far back as 4 million to 5 million years ago.
“In short, these molecular data strongly suggest that colugos are the sister group to primates.” says Miller.
“We were guessing that we might find that there were different species of Sunda colugos although we were not sure.” said researcher Jan Janecka of Texas A&M University. “But what really surprised us was how old the speciation events were. Some went back 4 to 5 million years.”
Flying Lemur. Photo Yeowatzup
At that time, rising sea level may have prevented travel between the mainland and the islands for these creatures — while they may be able to soar long distances, their ground movement is limited to a slow crawl, and generally only do so as a means to get vertical in a tree.
Colugos are incapable of crossing large open ground and populations would have been isolated and fragmented by the changes in sea levels and forest communities across their range.
“Because there were no large trees established in those low-lying areas, most likely the colugos populations could not connect again, because there wasn’t a forest cover between them.” Jan Janecka told LiveScience.
“The colugos most likely track the sea-level fluctuations, but also the fluctuation in the forest communities.” he added.
They’re surprisingly clumsy climbers — lacking opposable thumbs and not being especially strong, they proceed upwards in a series of slow hops, gripping onto the bark of trees with their small, sharp claws. They’re as comfortable hanging underneath a branch as sitting on top of it.
Colugos are shy and nocturnal. Remarkably little is known about their habits, although they’re believed to be generally solitary, except for mothers nursing young. They are herbivores, and thought to eat mostly leaves, shoots, flowers and sap, and probably fruit as well. They have well-developed stomachs and long intestines, capable of extracting nutriment from leaves.
Flying lemur with baby. Photo Robstephaustralia
The findings may have conservation implications in an area that’s being quickly destroyed by loggers and industrial agriculture developers.
“Until now, reductions in colugo numbers was considered just a range contraction, and so there were no conservation plans for restoring them or mitigating their loss.” Janecka said.
“However, this is no longer the case; we now need to re-assess the status of each of these species to determine which of them are under threat of extinction, and develop conservation plans that ensure their persistence.”
“In addition, some of the small isolated populations that were previously described as subspecies may also represent new species, which could disappear before we even realize they exist.” Janecka concluded.
“Because this is such an early divergence, and because the only living species in this group is found in lowland forests in a restricted part of southeast Asia, we suggest that a global priority be placed on the conservation of this species and its habitat.” Murphy says.
According to Miller, “colugos are going to be much more important species to study now that we know their relationship to primates.”
These newly indentified species of colugo even look slightly different — those on Borneo are smaller than their Javan and mainland counterparts, and they also have a wider variation than their relatives in fur color, including some with spots and others with really dark coloring.
The researchers speculate that the species tally is likely to rise as more research is done.
The finding is detailed in the Nov. 11 issue of the journal Current Biology and published in the journal Science on November 2nd.
Sources: Science Daily, Live Science, Mongabay, and Wikipedia
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I am allways amazed with all the little creatures that are being discovered all over the world.Thies little lemurs are kind of cute.
I think it would have been interesting if a full size ape had evolved with large flaps of skin to use as wings. There are crazy stunt men in this world who don spandex suits with wings and jump out of airplanes and high cliffs. This is really not much different that the flying Lemurs except that it is on a much larger scale and for a rather different purpose. Do you think the flying Lemurs are adrenaline junkies similar to the humans that emulate them?
Yes Paul, they’re called wingsuits that people use in base jumping, and I have even written about them on this site
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Good to hear it was useful to you