The Weekly Recap
Hello! Welcome back to the weekly recap – it has been an exceptionally busy one on the website.
The first trip report is an amazing double Bolivia feature (combining a trip from 2022 and one from 2023) from Rob Jansen and Romy Jansen-Houtzager’s “It’s a Wild Life!” series. They saw a total of 47 mammals and 836 birds in Bolivia, like Olalla’s Titi, Bolivian Pink River Dolphin and Bicolor-spined Porcupine. Purist mammalwatchers will be pleased to know the report is colour-coded – blue for birds, red for mammals – so you know which colour to avoid…
The next trip was to Tai National Park in Côte d’Ivoire. Despite a few birds being somewhat more sneakily woven in, it’s a great report with helpful details and lovely pictures.
There are two trip reports by Mark Hows from Eastern Europe. First is short one to Bulgaria, specifically for Roach’s Mouse-tailed Doormouse – it was successful (thankfully), and even includes some other species like a Northern White-bellied Hedgehog, a cute Spur-thighed Tortoise and a (rather strange-looking, if I say so myself) Worm Snake. And then one from Romania, with a Romanian Hamster, European Souslik and more.
This trip report from West Papua gives me terrible flashbacks to my dad’s recent trip there, mainly because he couldn’t send me any pictures of Old Dogs captioned “me” for 3 weeks… Oh wait. But other than this it’s a great report, featuring the mega-rare Western Long-beaked Echidna and 14 other identified species!
Next we have Singapore and Johor, Malaysia. Short but sweet, several different squirrel species were spotted, as well as langurs, macaques and a Wild Boar.
This trip to Brazil’s Pantanal and Cerrado saw a ton of cool mammals like the Maned Wolf, and is also the first trip report from Pousada Trijunção (just featured in the BBC’s Planet Earth!).
Next is Georgia, full of many big and fluffy mammals: chamois, East Caucasian Tur (I remember looking for these!) and the most adorable picture of a Red Squirrel I have ever seen.
The final trip report was from Patagonia: despite the main goal being hiking and not mammalwatching (I approve of neither), 27 species were seen! Darwin’s fox, Southern huemul and Puma are the highlights – with gorgeous pictures as always.
If you want to join a mammal trip, there is one to Brazil next summer to look for Jaguars (and Ocelot, Neotropical River Otter, Giant Otter, Giant Anteater…) so check it out if any of these interest you!
The 50th Mammalwatching Podcast episode was released this week! It’s an interview with Connor Burgin, the man behind the mammal list! All about his work in taxonomy and the creation of the American Society of Mammalogists’ Mammal Diversity Database, it is definitely worth a listen.
There has been another sighting of a critically endangered mammal! This time it is the Vangunu Giant Coconut-cracking Rat (excellent nomenclature) and the first ever images of it have been captured on a camera trap.
These notes on Swiss mammals could be very useful if you ever travel there, so make sure to take note of them (haha…).
If you have any advice about where to go/who to contact for mammalwatching in Hong Kong and Singapore, please comment here! And someone else is wondering whether a detour to Cave Creek canyon for mammals would be worth it in the winter, so comment here if you know about that:)
And finally, someone travelling to Laos is wondering how to see Laotian Langurs around The Rock Viewpoint – so again, comment any advice you might have.
If you would like to subscribe only to weekly updates like these from mammalwatching.com, you can visit this page.
Thanks for reading:)
Katy
Cover photo: Ralf Bürglin
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