Several scientific missions to the tropical forests of South East Asia – as well as a re-evaluation of specimens held in museum collections for decades – have yielded the discovery of five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs, according to the BBC.
Two of the animals in museum collections were found to be new species to science.
Three others, which had been categorised as subtypes of one species, were confirmed to be sufficiently distinct from each other to be formally recognised as individual species.
The animals belong to a group of hedgehogs called Hylomys, all of which live in South East Asia. There were previously only two known species, and this discovery brings the tally to seven.
They are small, long-nosed mammals and, while they are members of the same family as the more familiar hedgehog, are furry rather than spiny.
The discovery is published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
One of the lead researchers, Dr Melissa Hawkins of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, is quoted as saying that the discovery showed the ‘amazing’ diversity of life on our planet still to be revealed.
‘We think we know about the natural world, but even groups like mammals – especially the little things that live in difficult-to-reach habitats – we really don’t know much at all.’
[Image: Hylomys suillus exhibited in the Naturmuseum Senckenberg, Frankfurt am Main, Germany]