The Weekly Recap
Hello and welcome back to the weekly recap! I hope everyone has had a happy holiday season and start to the new year. If you’d like to, you can share your mammal highlights of 2025 (and goals for 2026) under this post, and admire the Leopard Seal my dad was so proud of managing to photoshop a Christmas hat onto.
Since I’m running a bit behind, this recap will be of posts up until December 27th, so anything posted after that will be in the next!
To start off this recap is Ian Thompson’s report from a trip to Sulawesi and Singapore in October. He saw 18 species including Pallas’ Tube-nosed Bat, Sunda Colugo and Gursky’s Spectral Tarsier.
Next are two reports from Sakertours trips to Romania: one from 2024, and one from 2025. Both trips got them Eurasian Water Shrew, European Wildcat, European Mink, and they even saw a Marbled Polecat in 2024!
A report by Asanoth from Madagascar includes Diademed Sifakas, Red-tailed Sportive Lemur, Golden Bamboo Lemur and a Greater Hedgehog Tenrec.
This short report from Tangjiahe NR, China by Zhou Yudong includes Masked Palm Civet, Chinese Goral and Eurasian Otter.
And the final report is from Zhou Fangyi’s trip to Northern Sumatra with Sumatran Orangutan, Siamang and Asian Elephant.
1StopBorneoWildlife is now offering a special primate-centred trip available at any time of year – check out this post for more information. And there are still two spots on this Miru Adventures trip to Brazil in May led by Regina Ribeiro and my dad (hopefully that last part won’t put you off too much) with targets like Northern Maned Sloth, Bristle-spined Porcupine and Brazilian Three-banded Armadillo.
When my dad was in Ethiopia last year, he and his fellow mammalwatchers thought of a fun way to help conservation around the village of Gerdame where they were staying. They enlisted Sierra Foley to design some football jerseys for the local team, featuring… Dibatags! Certainly an inventive way to spread the mammalwatching propaganda agenda. Take a look at this post to see the shirts in action and also to share any ideas you might have to help local conservation.
Coke Smith will be in Romania this summer and would love some advice for any good mammalwatching there, from Chamois to bears. Andy Symes, visiting Thailand soon, is asking about recent Dugong sightings in the Koh Libong/ Koh Mook area as well as any information about Irrawaddy Dolphins near Bangkok and a few other species.
There are also a couple of people looking for some species ID help. This mystery cetacean seen in Mirbat, Oman appears to be a Dwarf Sperm Whale but check out the post to see what you think. And there is also this rodent spotted in Ruaha NP, Tanzania!
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Thanks for reading:)
Katy
Cover photo: the extent of my dad’s photoshop talents
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Gert
Regarding the Irrawaddy dolphins, unfortunately, I don’t know about the Bangkok situation. I know there is an ongoing battle in the Mekong in Kratie, Cambodia, with a small population. The WWF and others are involved in daily reporting of any caught in nets, as well as newborns and total population numbers.
The population was very low last time I checked, but according to a 2025 press release from the Cambodia Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), the total population has grown to 112 individuals.
However, recovery is still precarious because they are a slow-reproductive species. Females only reach sexual maturity between 7 and 9 years of age, they have a long gestation period of 14 months, and they typically only produce one calf every 2 to 3 years.
The Math: If a female lives 30 years and starts having babies at age 9, she might only produce 7 to 8 calves in her entire life. This slow reproductive rate means every loss is a major setback. Regarding the upstream population, WWF-Laos and other agencies officially declared the species extinct in Laos in February 2022 after the last known individual in the transboundary pool was found dead. This makes the protection of the remaining 112 in Cambodia even more critical. Happy New year!