Lost and Found

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Biodiversity
Nature
Edward Hessler

In a news report for Nature, Bianca Nogrady writes about the first scientific evidence in nearly 30 years that Vietnam's silver-back chevrotain is not yet extinct. "The animal was first described in 1910 from four specimens, but since then only one verifiable record exists, from the early 1990s.

The discovery was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution on 11 November by "Andrw Tilker (lead author) at Global Wildlife Conservation, a non-governmental organization in Austin, Texas" who reported "that they obtained a total of 280 photographs of the creature during two separate periods between late 2017 and mid-2018."

While looking like deer, chevrotains are not in the deer family. They are rabbit-sized ungulates (hoofed animals) and have fangs and four toes.

Here is a short film (4m 26s) which shows one captured on a camera trap. The film includes information on other "missing" animals which are included in Global Wildlife Conservation's Lost Animal Initiative.