世界濒危的10种最危急的独特动物

"Weirdest"Animals to Get Conservation Attention

A slender loris walks on a branch at a shelter just outside Bangalore, India. The loris isjust one of ten strange and overlooked species that a new conservation effortwill focus on in 2007.
Photograph by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images
"Weirdest" Animals to Get ConservationAttention
John Roach
forNational Geographic News
January 16, 2007
Aconservation effort announced today aims to protect some of the world‘s oddestand most overlooked animal species.
TheEvolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) program, led by theZoological Society of London, focuses on animals that have unique evolutionaryhistories and face immediate risk of extinction.
The project combinedexisting data on species relatedness and threat status to develop a list of ahundred top animals.
In 2007 the project willfocus on ten high priority species from that list "with potential forslipping through the gaps without notice," said Samuel Turvey, a projectscientist with the zoological society.
"Of the top 100species which we‘re focusing on, more than 70 percent receive either noconservation attention or extremely limited attention," Turvey said.
The highest priorityspecies, the Yangtze River dolphin, mayalready be extinct, he added.
Turvey recently visited China to surveythe entire known range of the dolphin, which diverged from all other riverdolphins 20 million years ago, and failed to locate any. (Related story:"China‘sRare River Dolphin Now Extinct, Experts Announce" [December 14, 2006].)
"It appears to havedied out because there wasn‘t any conservation action done in time," hesaid.
"For 20 yearsconservationists recommended things that needed to happen that no one everacted on," he added. "We need to make sure that what happened to the Yangtze River dolphin never happens to any other species."
EDGE will raiseawareness of the animals and their plights, fund research studying the speciesin their natural habitats, and then help execute conservation plans.
Ten Targeted Animals
The Zoological Societyof London‘s focal species for 2007 include the following animals:
Yangtze River dolphin: Also known as the baiji, this pale,blue-gray freshwater dolphin with tiny eyes lives in one of the world‘s busiestand most degraded waterways—China‘s muddy Yangtze River.
Since the mid-1980sconservationists have advocated moving some baiji to a safer environment toestablish a breeding program, but no funds were ever allocated for such aprogram. Many scientists suspect the dolphin may already be extinct.
Long-beaked echidna: Thesespine-covered, egg-laying mammals—among the island of New Guinea‘s lastsurviving indigenous animals—are characterized by long beaks that comprisetwo-thirds the lengths of their heads.
Traditionalhunting—along with forest habitat loss to farming, logging, and mining—are theprimary threats to long-beaked echidnas.
Hispaniolan solenodon: Thisshrewlike insectivore native to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola is about thesize of a large brown rat. It is one of the few mammals that produces toxicsaliva, which the animal injects into its prey through a special groove in afront tooth.
Slow and clumsy, thesolenodon is poorly equipped to fight off introduced predators such as dogs andcats and is also threatened by habitat loss from human activity anddeforestation.
Bactrian camel: Able tosurvive for days on end without food and water,Bactriancamels—likely the ancestor to all two-humped camels—are adapted to life inAsia‘s hostile and fragile Gobi region.
The camels have losthabitat to mining and industrial development and must compete for food andwater with introduced livestock, including domestic camels. Many are also shotwhen they wander outside protected areas. Conservationists also fearinterbreeding with domestic camels has led to a loss of the geneticallydistinct wild population.
Pygmy hippopotamus: This smallrelative of the common hippopotamus is distinguished from its cousins by around head, eyes on the side of the head instead of the front, and separatedtoes with sharp nails instead of webbed feet. Like its relatives, the pygmysecretes a thick, oily substance known as blood sweat that allows it to stay inwater or a dry atmosphere on land for extended periods of time.
The pygmy hippopotamushas a discontinuous and shrinking presence in western Africa, likelybecause of logging, farming, and human settlement. It is also hunted for itsmeat.
Slender loris: This smallprimate with long, slender arms and legs (seephoto) is found only in Sri Lanka. It has a smallface with huge round eyes that provide excellent night vision for huntinginsects. (Relatedphoto:"Baby Loris Beefs Up in Zoo Nursery" [July 31, 2006].)
Both subspecies arelosing their habitats to logging, agriculture, and development and are huntedfor their meat and body parts, which are used in folk medicine.
Hirola: Perhaps theworld‘s rarest and most endangered antelope, Africa‘s hirolaappears to be wearing glasses because of a white line across its forehead andcircling its eyes.
Disease, predation, andcompetition with domestic livestock are the major threats to the hirola, whichcan be found in Somalia and Kenya. And thoughillegal, hirola poaching is also a serious danger.
Golden-rumped elephantshrew: A bright yellow patch of fur on its rear easily distinguishesthis shrew with a long, elephant-like trunk. About the size of a small cat, itis the largest of the elephant shrews and has long, spindly legs, large eyesand ears, and a long, partially naked tail.
The shrews are endemicto Kenya, but theyare found only in fragmented and small patches of coastal forest. Habitatdestruction is the primary threat, with most of its habitat now too small tosupport viable populations.
Bumblebee bat: Weighing inat 0.07 ounce (2 grams), this is the smallest mammal in the world. Thebumblebee-size creature has a swollen, piglike nose, relatively large ears, andsmall eyes concealed by fur.
The bats are found in cavesat Sai Yok NationalPark in Thailand and havealso been reported in southeastern Myanmar. Oncethreatened by tourist curiosity and scientific collection, the bat today isprimarily endangered by forest burning near their caves in Thailand.
Long-eared jerboa: Very littleis known about this small, jumping rodent with enormous ears. The jerboaresembles a mouse with a long, tufted tail and elongated hind legs, and itsears are about a third larger than its head.
Living in the deserthabitats of northwest China and southernMongolia, the jerboafaces habitat disturbance from livestock grazing. In addition, the animal‘swater sources are drying up, though the cause is uncertain.
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