NEW MAMMALS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11493, 21 November 1931, Page 9

NEW MAMMALS

TEN HITHERTO UNKNOWN SPECIES FOUND.

Ten New World mammals hitherto unknown to science are described in recent reports to the American Society of Mainmalogists.

The most notable are two members of the cat family discovered by Drs. E. W. Nelson and E, A. Goldman, of the U.S. Biological Survey, while examining a collection of skins and skulls from Mexico These are the Oaxaca and Yucatan long-tailed tiger eats, similar animals hut differing notably in color. They are members of the ocelot family. Another discovery in the same collection was tho Trinidad Valley desert fox, from the mountain foothills of Lower California. They also found a hitherto unknown mouse which inhabits the Coronados Is lands off the north-west coast of Lower California. Drs, Nelson and Goldman also report the discovery ol a now variety of raccoon by U.S. National Museum workers on an island off the coast of South Carolina. It differs markedly in color and in skull formation from tlie raccoon of the mainland. Discovery of three new races of chipmunks iu the mountains of Southern- Nevada, is reported to tlie society by William 11. Burt, of the California Institute of Technology, and a new variety of pika is reported by A. E. Borel 1, of Berkeley, Calif., from the Seven Devils Mountains of Idaho.

From a scientific standpoint perhaps the most notable discovery j.s of a new vole collected bv a Biological Survey worker in the desolate Endieott Mountains of Alaska. This is reported hv Dr. Nelson. Evident o is presented to show that this tiny mouse-like rodent is a variation of a family which crossed the prehistoric land bridge between Siberia and Alaska comparatively late, so that it is now confined to Alaska. while other types of the same family crossed earlier and spread southward. Tts present range is nearly that of tbe white mountain sheep, another late migrant, which has not been able to spread southward.