Taxonomy news

Primates get split all the time, but most of those splits are not scientifically justified. Artiodactyls are fairly stable as long as you ignore taxonomic vandalism by Groves & Grubb. The only proposed split in carnivores this year, if I remember correctly, was of pampas cats; it might be valid but the evidence is weak. I think the only split in the last few months that I didn’t mention here was a proposal to split the southernmost population of degus as Octodon ricardojeda, but genetic differences was small and in my opinion there’s solid evidence only for two species: O. degus and largely sympatric O. bridgesi with 4 subspecies (bridgesi, pacificus, ricardojeda and lunatus). A few weeks ago there were news of claimed discovery of a new Mesoplodon whale, but no details made public yet.

Most recent genetic evidence shows that there’s only one species of bushbuck. I would certainly wait on muntjacs as there might be just 4-5 species rather than 11-16 currently recognized by various lists. Many proposed splits were based on differences in chromosome numbers, but those haven’t been shown to create reproductive isolation.

In most groups of mammals it’s common for two species to look almost identical but be genetically different and reproductively isolated. But with primates it’s usually the opposite: closely related populations can have striking differences in appearance, particularly in facial features. Just look at our own species. There is no official list I could recommend, but I have a personal checklist where only well-substantiated splits are recognized.