Ree bought a bundle from Tahita Hills, Kenya. Loan by Hannah Rost
A research team from the University of Helsinki has discovered a tree pepper in the Kenyan city of Tahita Hills, which may belong to a previously unknown species.
The discovery, which was part of the study of nocturnal animals in Taita Hills, was published in the scientific journal in mid-December. Variety,
Very little is known about the ecology of tree hiraxes, as these animals, which look like large guinea pigs but are distant relatives of elephants, are mostly active at night in tree canopies in subtropical Africa. It is known that these animals can shout with a force of more than a hundred decibels, but the calls for “suffocation” recorded in the forests of Tahita were not described elsewhere.
The recordings show that the hiraxes of the Taita tree are singing
The song hy ari hyrax can last more than twelve minutes, it consists of different syllables that are combined and repeated with different syllables.
“Singing animals are probably males trying to attract a mate,” said Hannah Rostin, who spent three months in the woods of Taita, chasing nocturnal mammals and recording their voices.
Sound sample – “Drowned escape” scream about a tree hirax.
Vocal pattern – the buy hirax song.
The results suggest that the two populations of the dwarf galago in the Taita Hills may belong to different species. The calls of animals from smaller populations are very similar to the bells of the Kenyan coast dwarf galago, a species previously thought to live only in coastal, lowland forests. The specific calls of the second population are not yet definitively related to any of the known species.
“The taxonomy of many nocturnal mammals is poorly known; many populations have not yet been studied,” said researcher Henry Pihlstrյm, who studied the complex taxonomy of tree irises and galagos for a published study.
Reference. Hannah Rosti, Henry Pihlstrեմm, Simon Barder, Petri Pellikka – “Analysis of Vocalization of Nocturnal Dendritic Mammals in Kenya, Tahita Hills”
և ou oko Rikkinen, December 13, 2020 Variety,
DOI: 10.3390 / d12120473: