New study reveals five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs from Southeast Asia

A new study by scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History identifies five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs from Southeast Asia.

The study, published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Societyused DNA analysis and physical characteristics to describe two entirely new species of soft-furred hedgehogs and elevate three subspecies to species status.

The two new species, named Hylomys vorax and H. macarong, are endemic to the endangered Leuser ecosystem, a tropical rainforest located in northern Sumatra and southern Vietnam, respectively. The museum specimens essential to the description of these two new species came from the natural history collections of the Smithsonian and the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where they had sat in drawers for 84 and 62, respectively. years before their identification.

The study is the result of an international collaboration between researchers from the University of Seville and the Doñana Biological Station in Spain, George Mason University and the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in the United States, from the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum in Singapore, the Natural History Museum in Geneva in Switzerland and the University of Malaysia in Malaysia – highlights that even in well-studied animal groups like mammals, there are still discoveries to be made , showing what is possible when modern techniques such as DNA analysis are applied to museum collections.

Soft-furred hedgehogs or gymnures are small mammals that are members of the hedgehog family, but as their common name suggests, they are hairy rather than spiny. Like spiny hedgehogs, they are not rodents and have pointy snouts. Without the spines of their better-known cousins, soft-furred hedgehogs superficially look a bit like a mix of mouse and shrew with a short tail, said Arlo Hinckley, lead author of the study and postdoctoral researcher Margarita Salas at National Museum of Natural History and University of Seville.

The five new species belong to a group of soft-furred hedgehogs called lesser gymnures (Hylomys) that live in Southeast Asia and were previously recognized as represented by only two known species.

“We were only able to identify these new hedgehogs thanks to the museum staff who have preserved these specimens for countless decades and their original collectors in the field,” Hinckley said. “By applying modern genomic techniques as we did several years after these hedgehogs were first collected, the next generation will be able to identify even more new species.”

Hinckley said these small mammals are active day and night and are omnivorous, likely eating a diversity of insects and other invertebrates as well as some fruits when opportunities present themselves.

“Based on the lifestyle of their close relatives and field observations, these hedgehogs likely nest in hollows and hide while feeding among tree roots, fallen logs, rocks, grassy areas, the underbrush and the dead leaves,” Hinckley said. “But because they are so little studied, we are limited to speculating about the details of their natural history.”

Hinckley first became intrigued by the Hylomys gymnure group in 2016 during his doctoral studies, especially after sampling them in Borneo with co-author Miguel Camacho Sánchez. Preliminary genetic data and studies of several known populations of Hylomys in Southeast Asia suggest that there may be more species in the group than currently recognized. This led Hinckley to scour natural history collections for specimens attributed to the group, many of which were just preserved skins and skulls.

When he began his research at the Smithsonian in 2022, Hinckley tapped the collections of the National Museum of Natural History to fill in the geographic gaps in specimens he had already studied with the help of Melissa Hawkins, the curator of mammals at the museum.

Ultimately, Hinckley, Hawkins, and colleagues collected 232 physical specimens and 85 tissue samples for genetic analysis from the entire Hylomys group from a combination of Hinckley and Hawkins’ own field collections, as well as as modern and historic museum specimens from no fewer than 14 natural history collections in Asia, Europe and the United States

Next, Hinckley and his co-authors embarked on the lengthy process of genetically analyzing the 85 tissue samples from the former Doñana Biological Station DNA lab and the museum’s analytical biology labs. They also carried out rigorous physical observations and collected measurements to examine differences in the size and shape of the skulls, teeth and fur of the 232 specimens.

The genetic results identified seven distinct genetic lineages in Hylomys, suggesting that the number of recognized species in the group was about to increase by five, later confirmed by the team’s physical observations of the specimens.

“It might be surprising for people to learn that there are still undiscovered mammals,” Hawkins said. “But there is a lot we don’t know, especially small nocturnal animals that can be difficult to distinguish from one another.”

H. macarong, which has dark brown fur and measures about 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) in length, is named after a Vietnamese word for vampire (Ma cà rồng) because males of the species possess long incisors in fang shape. Hinckley said more study would be needed to determine what the fangs might be used for, but that their larger size in males suggests they could play a role in sexual selection. Males also have rust-colored chest markings that Hawkins said may have been stained by scent glands.

H. vorax also has dark brown fur but is slightly smaller than H. macarong at 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) long; it has a completely black tail, a very narrow snout and is only found on the slopes of Mount Leuser in North Sumatra. Hinckley and Hawkins gave the species the Latin name H. vorax after a striking description of its behavior by mammologist Frederick Ulmer, who collected the specimens that led to the description of the species during an expedition to Sumatra in 1939.

Ulmer described the creature in his field notes, misidentifying it as a type of shrew: “They were voracious beasts that often devoured the entire bait before springing the trap.” Ham rind, coconut, meat and nuts were eaten. A shrew partially devoured the trap. chicken head baited in a steel trap before getting caught in a nearby Schuyler trap baited with ham rind.

The other three new species were all formerly considered subspecies of Hylomys suillus, but all showed enough genetic and physical divergence to merit being upgraded to full species. They are named H. dorsalis, H. maxi and H. peguensis.

H. dorsalis is native to the mountains of northern Borneo and has a conspicuous dark stripe that begins at the top of its head and bisects its back before fading around the middle of the body. It is about the same size as H. macarong.

H. maxi is also found at the larger end of the new species of soft-furred hedgehogs, measuring 14 centimeters (5.5 inches). The species is found in the mountainous regions of the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. H. peguensis is smaller, measuring 13 centimeters (5.1 inches), and is found in many countries in mainland Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. Its fur is a little yellower than other new species, Hawkins said.

Describing new species expands humanity’s scientific understanding of the natural world and can be a tool to strengthen conservation in threatened habitats such as the Leuser ecosystem of North Sumatra.

“This type of study can help governments and organizations make difficult choices about prioritizing conservation funding to maximize biodiversity,” Hinckley said.