29 January 2017

Updated world mammal checklist (January 2017 edition)

I’ve just updated my world mammal checklist which you can download here. This is the list I use for my life list.

I had not updated the list in a year and so there have been a lot of changes, mainly from revisions to the IUCN redlist. The changes, and how the list differs from the IUCN redlist, are detailed in worksheets on the main spreadsheet (click on the tabs “changes over time since August 2015” and “divergences from the IUCN list” – which are also highlighted in gold on the main list). But, in short:

The IUCN have added – or split – over 100 species, though have yet to adopt the many Ungulate splits that were suggested in the Handbook of the Mammals of the World a few years ago.

Many of these additions are fairly obscure for most of us I imagine (lots of Tree Rats, Pikas and Red Colobuses) but are few were relevant to my own list, including:

a. Red Deer and American Elk have been split;

b. the Kinda Baboon has been split from the Yellow Baboon (not sure if “Kinda” is pronounced Kinda as in the Kinder egg, or Kinda as in “well its a kinda baboon innit?”)

c. Parnell’s Moustached Bat has been split into three species (Pternotus parnelli, P. mesoamericanus and P. rubiginosus);

d Pottos have been split into western, central and eastern African flavours; and

e. Dent’s and Lowe’s Monkeys have been split from Cercocebus pogonias and Cercocebus campbelli respectively.

Richard Webb and Phil Teller probably already now that the Souther Little-spotted Cat is now split from Oncilla.

But the IUCN giveth and the IUCN taketh away. They have removed about 40 species, most of which are also pretty obscure but include lumping the American and European Moose into one; lumping Colombian Red Howler Monkeys (Alouatta seniculus seniculus) into Guyanan Howlers (Alouatta macconnelli); and rearranging  the Olingos from five to three species.

Another 100 or so species have new scientific names from the IUCN.

I’ve also included a further 11 species which have not made it onto the IUCN’s Red List yet but will probably get there before too long, these include the new Sunda and Bornean Palm Civets, Paradoxurus musangus and Paradoxurus philippinensis respectively.

All up, at 5629 species, there are now 80 more species to see than this time last year, and my life list came out four species ahead.

Finally, largely thanks to the help of Paul Carter (who also let me know about some of the new species I added),  I’ve included common names for a bunch more species who the IUCN only gives scientific names for.

I am sure there are a lots of errors here so please let me know what needs fixing. I also imagine opinions will differ on some of these splits and lumps, so if something seems very obviously wrong let me know!

Jon

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