New Global Mammal List Update
Happy 2024 – and I hope the new year is starting well for everyone and will only get better.
I got back to New York a week ago after a fun Christmas in Australia. Three hours later I was knocked out by the flu for a week. But when my life wasn’t flashing before my eyes (side not -: no, Katy Hall, I am not being ‘dramatic’: it is an established medical fact that man colds are a dangerous thing) I passed the time updating my global mammal checklist which is attached (and also here).
Like last time I have pretty much followed the Mammal Diversity Database lock stock and barrel for everything other than primates, where I follow the IUCN’s latest and very up to date list.
For non-primates I break from the MDD only twice and include the
- Bornean Striped Palm Civet (Arctogalidia stigmatica): the status of this species is still under discussion and I’m reluctant to drop it in case it gets reinstated next time, especially as many people have it on their Borneo list rather than A. tivirgata.
- Australian Tree Mouse (Pogonomys mollipilosus): it is almost certainly a new species but is still awaiting description.
Please let me know if you have other suggestions for species that should be included here even if they are still not officially described.
Once again the global list has grown. Just 21 species were removed, while 130 were added to give a total of 6637 extant species. Most of these additions were fairly obscure species that few of us will have seen (or even heard of!) and so my own list only increased by 4 species. Bang goes my proud moment of having seen more than 1/3 of the world’s species. Now I know why people hate inflation.
The ‘changes’ tab on the Excel sheet lists the changes since last time. Some of the ones that affected my list include:
Lumps: Hinde’s Dik-dik, Woolly Funnel-eared Bat, Yukon Deermouse and Yellow-throated Squirrel have been dropped
New Ones: There are two new cottontails in Central America, and three new hares in North Africa (I have seen them all in Morocco). Muntjaks from the Himlayan foothills in the far northwest of India are now Himalayan Muntjacs (Muntiacus aureus): I think I saw this species in Corbett NP but I am checking with the authors of the paper, while true Black Myotis bats are only found now in the Atlantic Rainforest: the species is a complex and animals in Central America seem likely to be Mexican Black Myotis (Myotis extremus).
If you are already using an older version of this spreadsheet and want to put your list into this version then it might be a bit of a pain I am afraid. You could do it manually – one species at a time – which will also give you a chance to see what is going on with the splits and lumps. Otherwise there ought to be a quicker way to do it using the Excel lookup function I think. If someone know how do do that easily and can explain it then please do share your hack.
If you are using theexcellent Scythebill software (which is now updated to this taxonomy) it will be much quicker. I love Scythebill and if you haven’t started using it then maybe now is the moment.
I have included all the fields from the MDD in the attached spreadsheet, with columns giving information on things like the taxonomic history and literature behind new species. I have hidden those columns but they can all be unhidden if you want to check the details. Or you can simply search for the particular species of interest on mammaldiversity.org.
I hope this is helpful and that everyone get a few armchair ticks. Don’t forget to include your new totals in the rankings! And please let me know when you spot mistakes – I will be amazed if I didn’t make some.
Jon
All Mammals Jan 2024
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8 Comments
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Jon Hall
The literature is the n the spreadsheet if you unhide the columns and on the MDD entry for each species. See Soria-Boix, C., Donat-Torres, M. P., Rguibi Idrissi, H., & Urios, V. (2019). Evolutionary ecology of hares (Lepus spp.) from northwestern Africa; The problem of cryptic species and the description of a new species (Lepus saharae sp. nov.). Evolutionary Ecology Research (Online), 20(5), 537-555.
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JanEbr
Ha, that’s interesting – the paper is a bit confusing as they act like the other two species were known – yes, they were technically “described” a long time ago, but there are literally no references to those as species in any recent literature. But taxonomist somehow insist on writing papers this way, always dancing around these historical naming conventions. Anyway, good luck to anyone interested in ticking those running around with DNA collection kits 🙂 Interestingly, we *did* see a Hare close to Aousserd, but we got not photos. We considered it, as was customary, as Cape Hare, which this paper proves quite wrong (the DNA puts it closer to Savannah Hare) and by range it’s likely the new species L. saharae! I am not sure if one should count this purely on range – and it’s a rhetorical question as we have already decided that keeping lists according to multiple taxonomies is untenable for us and we are following whichever taxonomy is current on iNaturalist.
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Jon Hall
The literature is the n the spreadsheet if you unhide the columns and on the MDD entry for each species. See Soria-Boix, C., Donat-Torres, M. P., Rguibi Idrissi, H., & Urios, V. (2019). Evolutionary ecology of hares (Lepus spp.) from northwestern Africa; The problem of cryptic species and the description of a new species (Lepus saharae sp. nov.). Evolutionary Ecology Research (Online), 20(5), 537-555.
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Antee
Still no Andean slender mouse opossum (Marmosops impavidus)?
Seen rarely at Bellavista Lodge – Ecuador.
I saw one crossed the road at night.
https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/89333331/22178706