Myanmar snub-nosed monkey, Credit: FFI/BANCA/PRCF
- The Myanmar Snub-nosed Monkey was first discovered and described for science as recently as 2010 and has yet to be seen in the wild by scientists. An expedition in 2011 succeeded in capturing the first photographs of the animal alive and in its natural habitat, using camera traps.
- Also in Asia, the stunning Blackthroat is amongst the least known birds in the world: a male seen for an afternoon in the grounds of Sichuan University last May was the first of its species to be photographed in the wild! And amazingly, just a month later in June 2011 scientists discovered for the first time where this lovely bird breeds, in the bamboo thickets of the Qinling Mountains of central China. The same habitat is, of course, famously home to the Giant Panda.
- A beautiful new snake is discovered in Tanzania... but they're not saying where, exactly. With wildlife trade second only to drugs as the world's largest illegal trade, and with reptiles making up a major part of this, the location of this new species is being kept deliberately vague to avoid it disappearing from the relict forests where it lives and into private collections around the world.
- And yet another new mouse lemur found in Madagascar, a highland specialist, just down the road from probably the most visited reserve in the country at Andasibe - Mantadia.
- In New Zealand, fourteen young Blue Duck have been translocated to Fiordland, where a program of stoat control now protects more than 160km of waterways.
- And in Galapagos, genetic work seems to suggest that the population of Giant Tortoises found on Wolf Volcano, Isabela may include animals that originated on Floreana, or at least the direct descendants of around 40 Floreana tortoises. Among the apparent first generation hybrids are animals less than 15 years old... Floreana's native tortoises were thought to have died out around 150 years ago...
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