Page 16 - Thola Issue 17

14 Mammal Department
Leigh Richards, Curator of Mammals, reports on the numerous specimens collected and the flurry of surveys conducted last year.
SURVEYS AND SMALL SPECIMENS
Another year, another few hundred specimens added to our collection
– 375 new specimens in fact! Approximately 75% of the new additions were animals that my team collected during our small mammal surveys throughout KwaZulu-Natal
and the Eastern Cape. We received several small mammal specimens from Limpopo, collected by Professor Peter Taylor and his postgraduate students.
A minor collection of small mammals received from researchers involved with the biodiversity survey work in northern Mozambique, was another noteworthy donation received during 2014.
RARE CARNIVORE
Our most interesting acquisition was a rare African Striped Weasel that was
collected in Howick. African Striped Weasels are regarded as one of the smallest of Africa’s carnivores. In KwaZulu-Natal, the species is mainly associated with grassland areas of the midlands and highlands of KwaZulu-Natal and is rarely sighted along the coast.
The diet of this small carnivore consists mostly of small mammals, but they are also known to feed on birds and shrews. The greatest threat to wild populations, as listed in the Red Data Book of Mammals of South Africa, is habitat loss to agriculture, predation by domestic dogs (as was the case of this unfortunate individual), and exploitation for traditional medicine; the skin and other body parts of the animal are used for good luck or protection against harm.
RESEARCH
The beginning of the year saw me working on the final edits to my doctoral thesis. I graduated in April 2014. I am currently preparing the final paper of my thesis for publication in an international peer-reviewed journal.
I was fortunate to team up with researchers from the University of Montpellier in France and Stellenbosch University, working on African Pygmy Mice (Mus minutoides), one of the smallest rodent species occurring in Africa and weighing in at only 3-10 g.
I contributed samples towards an ongoing research project focused on uncovering the chromosomal diversity of these tiny rodents. I was a co-author on a paper published in the prestigious chromosome research journal: Veyrunes F., Perez J., Borremans B., Gryseels S., Richards L.R., Duran A., Chevret P., Robinson T.J., Britton-Davidian J. (2014). A new cytotype of the African pygmy mouse Mus minutoides in Eastern Africa. Implications for the evolution
of sex-autosome translocations. Chromosome Research, 22: 533-543.
I co-authored another paper published in the highly accessed
Journal of
Virology: Corman V.M., Ithete N.L.,
thola: VOLUME 17. 2014/15