Elephant shrew rediscovered in Africa after 50 years

LONDON: A little-known mammal related to an elephant but as small as a mouse has been rediscovered in Africa after 50 years of obscurity, foreign media reported.

The last scientific record of the "lost species" of elephant shrew was in the 1970s, despite local sightings. The creature was found alive and well in Djibouti, a country in the Horn of Africa, during a scientific expedition.

Elephant shrews, or sengis, are neither elephants nor shrews, but related to aardvarks, elephants and manatees. They have distinctive trunk-like noses, which they use to feast on insects.

There are 20 species of sengis in the world, and the Somali sengi (Elephantulus revoilii) is one of the most mysterious, known to science only from 39 individuals collected decades ago and stored in museums. The species was previously known only from Somalia, hence its name.

Steven Heritage, a research scientist at the Duke University Lemur Center in Durham, US, and a member of the expedition to the Horn of Africa in 2019, said he was thrilled to put the species "back on the radar".

He told the BBC: "We were really excited and elated when we opened the first trap that had an elephant shrew in it, a Somali sengi. "We did not know which species occurred in Djibouti and when we saw the diagnostic feature of a little tufted tail, we looked at each other and we knew that it was something special."