9 December 2025

Listers of the World Rejoice: Here’s a Mammal Taxonomy Update

Hello and welcome to this, the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, I have updated mammalwatching’s taxonomic master list to reflect the latest discoveries. And the good news is that some people will be getting an armchair tick or two and I imagine – unlike some years (the “mammalwatching dark ages” as they are now called)  – very few people will see their mammal total decline.

Once again this list comes from the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) maintained by the American Society of Mammalogists. I follow that list exactly, just removing long extinct species from those in their database. Like the MDD I include domestic species that are living wild.

There are now 6721 tickable mammals. Up from 6645 in September 2024.

The other worksheet in the attached Excel file lists the changes since last time: species lumped and dropped; species split or newly described; and species whose scientific names have changed.

Many of the changes are fairly obscure but more notable additions include:

  • The Americas: there are now two white-eared opossums; while nine-banded armadillos and botta’s pocket gophers have been split in multiple directions;
  • Asia: there is a new grey-bellied squirrel, a new Tamiops striped squirrel and a new Sumatran Mountain Muntjak;
  • Europe: Finland’s Saimaa Ringed Seal is now a species in its own right (I need to go see that one next year) and some more changes in white-toothed shrews.

I have included in the spreadsheet information about the ranges of a few of these new species to help anyone wanting to double check previous sightings. In any case the reference papers listed on the MDD will usually have the information you might need.

I have also updated the league table lists for bats, cats, carnivores and ungulates. Cat listers may be happy to hear that the Narino Cat (Leopardus narinensis), which made a short-lived appearance, has now been lumped back with the Clouded Oncilla (L. pardinoides).

I have not yet updated the primate league table list, which will continue to follow the IUCN’s Primate Specialist Group taxonomy. I hope to update this before too long with the IUCN’s latest thinking.

The fabulous and free Scythebill Software is already using these updates. I love this software and it makes handling these changes pretty easy – sometimes automatically reassigning historical sightings when I update taxonomies and flagging species that do not match the scythebill country lists. In the long run it is worth investing time in putting your list into Scythebill.

For bona fide listing nerds then the entire MDD database is included in the spreadsheet (including links to reference papers, type localities and more) though I hid those columns because for most people they will be a distraction.

The latest lists are available on this page.

Last, here’s an interesting article – thank you Charles Hood and others – about the MDD and how it takes its decisions. It includes statistics on the overall growth in mammal numbers.

Any questions please let me know.

I am up 7 species. Boom. How many new ticks did you get?

 

Jon

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Taxonomy November 2025

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Jon Hall
Genetically Welsh, spiritually Australian, currently in New York City. I’ve also lived and worked in London, Canberra, Paris and Lusaka, and watched mammals in over 100 countries.
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