6 Comments

  • 4 August 2010
    Jon Hall

    Fabulous! Thanks Andrew

  • 9 August 2010
    Maurice Tijm

    Thanks for this, 1 comment: What about the Hairy nosed Otter sighting of Dion Hobcroft in 2009 at the Kinabatangan River? Do the scientist not refer to this because his report is ‘grey literature’?

    • 14 August 2010
      Richard Webb

      In part it’s true, very few scientists seem to pay any attention to records in the grey literature and in any case unfortunately as with many records of cats in Sabah they tend to be excluded from the scientific record due to the lack of photos or specimens. Researchers unfortunately seem to have great difficulty accepting anything seen by non-scientists without photographic evidence even records of easily identified species like Flat-headed Cat! There’s a site near Kota Kinabalu where Hairy-nosed Otters are reported to occur(I don’t know if they are accurate or not)but I suspect that they are not as rare as the article would suggest.

  • 17 August 2010
    Jon Hall

    Yes I suspect that those otters aren’t so rare. There is a site for them in southern Thailand too which I have not visited. Some scientists are too sceptical its true but its very easy to confuse species so I also sympathise with many of them. I remember a great talk from a well known Australian mammalogist about the need to verify species and how he went to look for a reported Tasmanian Tiger. It turned out to be a Dingo with distemper and it was so thin the ribs were sticking out like stripes and there were some other strange things going on with the animal too that gave it an uncanny resemblance. Anyway, I try to take photos of everything I see now because I don’t trust myself to always get the right ID.

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