14 DAY TRIAL // A new species of extinct giant lemurs was recently discovered in Madagascar, off the coast of southeastern Africa. A new report states that this was the first species to be added to the genus in more than a century, which makes this discovery all the more important. The new “addition” has been speculated on for the past two decades, but, until now, researchers have had no clear evidence that the animal existed in other places than in theory.
Until now, some 71 species of lemurs have been counted around Madagascar, which is the only place in the world where these animals live. According to Paleontologist Dominique Gommery, from the Paris, France-based National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the new type of lemur was named Palaeopropithecus kelyus. The animal is not a fossil in the strictest meaning of the term, in that it only disappeared a short while ago, and fossils have not yet had time to get mineralized. But the bones that do get found may, indeed, help researchers in understanding how biodiversity came to evolve so strongly in places such as Madagascar, LiveScience reports.
In addition to P. kelyus, two other types of subfossils have also been found over the past few years. Together, they may provide naturalists with clues as to why their species evolved the way it did, and could also offer more insight into how the ecosystem of their time interacted with the new one. This could allow scientists to determine how exactly it was that some older species emerged victorious and thrived, while others, maybe even new ones, perished altogether.
The scientists in charge of the study said that the giant lemurs were very similar to South American sloths, and that they usually moved from tree to tree using all four of their legs, and with their head dangling downwards. P. kelyus, though a bit smaller than the other two giant lemur species (P. ingens and P. maximus), still weighed about 77 pounds (35 kg). For comparison, the experts added, the largest lemur living at the moment only weighed 22 pounds (ten kilograms), and was called the Indri.
Details of the MAPPM French-Malagasy expedition appear online in recent editions of the journal Comptes Rendus Palevol.