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Jun
6
2007
Clouded leopards continue to be a target for taxonomic splitters, as a study published recently in Frontiers in Zoology demonstrates. Andreas Wilting, at the University of Würzburg, and colleagues built on the findings of earlier studies to confirm the proposed new status of cloudies on Borneo, recently upgraded from subspecies to species (Neofelis diardi). But they went further than that: having reiterated that mainland leopards Neofelis nebulosa were distinct from those found on Borneo and Sumatra, they discovered that the latter two islands host significantly different N. diardi subspecies. The upshot of this latest split is that the island populations should be treated as separate conservation units, whose long term management plans should be designed independently. Watch this space for yet more new clouded leopard taxa, each more rare and vulnerable than the last. Source: Wilting A, Buckley-Beason VA, Feldhaar H, Gadau J, O’Brien SJ & Linsenmair KE (2007) Clouded leopard phylogeny revisited: support for species recognition and population division between Borneo and Sumatra. Frontiers in Zoology DOI: 10.1186/1742-9994-4-15
Related story in Conservation magazine: Democratizing Taxonomy
Image © Dieter Spears
Filed Under Endangered species, Habitat, Monitoring, Restoration |
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[...] tools are invaluable in the quest to unravel evolution’s pathway, but they’re also uncovering conservation bloopers, as a study published in Molecular Ecology [...]