New species of mammal discovered in west Yunnan

During a recent survey on biodiversity, staff members with the Tengchong Branch of Mount. Gaoligong National Nature Reserve Administration of Baoshan in west Yunnan Province monitored a new mammal, which experts say belongs to the red serow (capricornis rubidus).

The red serow is considered a subspecies of C. sumatraensis mostly native to northern Myanmar, according to the Mammal Species of the World. And the images taken make hard evidence that the species also exists in the Gaoligongshan mountainous areas.

"Similar images were first captured by infrared cameras in 2016, but the pictures were not clear enough. Later the red serow was captured at varied spots and on different occasions. Rangers even saw the mammal in person and took pictures of high definition, paving the way to confirmation by zoologists.” Bi Zheng, head of the Tengchong Branch, specified, adding that the successive discovery of new species in the Mount. Gaoligong reserve in recent years shows positive results by their conservative effort. 

At present, the Tengchong Branch has stepped up its monitoring on the red serow, so as to officially release a clear picture of the distribution and population of the mammal in the reserve as soon as possible. 

Earlier this year, Chinese scientists announced in Yunnan that less than 200 hoolock gibbons distributed in the province are actually an entirely new species, known as the Gaoligong hoolock gibbon (Hoolock tianxing) which are scattered in fragmented forests in the Gaoligong Mountains in Bao-shan, Tengchong county and Yingjiang county. 

Yunnan crowns China in wild-animal variety. 46 wild species of the province, including nycticebus coucangs, snub-nosed monkeys, wild elephants, wild oxen and gibbons, are listed for Class-I protection at the national level.

By Huang Xiangyuan, trans-editing by Eric Wang