Nocturnal creature with bushy tail caught in a trap in Madagascar. It’s a new species

While Madagascar is famously home to lemurs, the large island also harbors another bushy-tailed creature, one that’s long gone undetected — until now.

Researchers recently discovered a new species of tuft-tailed rat living among the forests and grasslands of the African country, according to a study published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

The nocturnal rodent species, easily distinguishable by a cluster of long hairs on its tail, was found during multiple surveys of the island between 2010 and 2018.

Throughout the survey, over 100 rats were captured in traps throughout the northern section of the island, and sections of their ears were biopsied for further study.

Upon genetic analysis, researchers realized they had encountered a previously unknown species belonging to the genus Eliurus, a family of 13 known rat species native to the island. They called this recently discovered species Eliurus sp. nova, or the new tufted-tail rat.

“We applied many approaches to check that the identified taxon differed from the closest taxa,” Gabriel Sgarlata and Lounès Chikhi, two of the study authors, said in a news release from the Portuguese Institute of Gulbenkian Science. “adding a 14th species is thus quite a surprise for the team.”

Eliurus rats make their homes in the island’s forests, climbing trees and scampering along the ground, but they’ve also displayed a tolerance to deforested environments, researchers said.

They’re just one group of the many animal families that are indigenous to Madagascar, which is known as a biodiversity hotspot. However, it has lost nearly a third of its forests in the past two decades.

In light of threats to biodiversity, the study is important because it highlights the need for “urgent and targeted conservation actions to safeguard these remarkable species from the escalating threats they face,” researchers said in the release.

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