MANILA: Twenty-eight unique species of mammals have been discovered in Luzon, which is said to have the “greatest concentration” of such animals in the world.
A study published recently in the scientific journal Frontiers of Biogeography bared the results of a 15-year project that looked into the mammalian biodiversity of the Philippines’ largest island, reported Philippine Star .
“We started our study on Luzon in 2000 because we knew at the time that most of the native mammal species on the island were unique to the island, and we wanted to understand why that is the case,” project leader Lawrence Heaney reportedly said.
“We did not expect that we would double the number already known,” he eportedly said, noting that 28 non-flying mammals were discovered during the course of the project.
Heaney, who worked with a team of American and Filipino researchers, is the Negaunee Curator of Mammals at The Field Museum in Chicago, said the news portal.
Other co-authors include Danilo Balete of The Field Museum, Mariano Roy Duya and Melizar Duya of the University of the Philippines, Sharon Jansa of the University of Minnesota, Scott Steppan of the Florida State University and Eric Rickart of the Natural History Museum of Utah.
The paper also revealed that out of the 56 species of non-flying mammal species that are now known to live in Luzon, 52 live nowhere else in the planet. And researchers said the island has the “greatest concentration” of unique mammals in the world.
According to the team, 28 new species were discovered during the course of the project. Nineteen of them are formally described in scientific journals and nine are currently “in the works.”
“All 28 of the species we discovered during the project are members of two branches on the tree of life that are confined to the Philippines,” Rickart was quoted as saying in the report.
“There are individual mountains on Luzon that have five species of mammals that live nowhere else. That’s more unique species on one mountain than live in any country in continental Europe. The concentration of unique biodiversity in the Philippines is really staggering,” he added.
The team also discovered 57 species of bats that mostly live in the hot, humid lowlands, the report highlighted.
These include the golden-crowned flying fox, which is one of the heaviest bats in the world, and the lesser flat-headed bat that is so tiny that it can roost inside the hollow spaces inside bamboo stems.
Balete, a research associate of the Field Museum, said that the study also sought to learn about the conservation status of the animals.
“The Philippines is one of the most heavily deforested countries in the tropics; only about seven percent of the old-growth tropical forest is left. We learned that quite a few of the species are seriously threatened by habitat loss and over-hunting, but none are yet extinct,” he was quoted as saying by Philippine Star.
“Protecting all of these species from extinction is going to be a big challenge. The good news is that when the native forest is allowed to regenerate, the native mammals move back in, and the pest rats get kicked out,” he added.
