This month ARKive sets out to explore the animals of Mongolia. From snow-covered mountains to the Gobi Desert and the vast steppe lands, this country is home to a diverse range of alluring wildlife. Living at an average of 5,800 feet above sea level, many of these species are adapted to a high altitude lifestyle.

Pack predator

Mongolia’s top canid is the dhole. These wild dogs typically live in packs of about 12, but have been seen in groups as large as 40. Only the dominant female will breed each season and the whole pack takes responsibility for raising the pups. Working collectively, these predatory canids can take down prey up to ten times their size.

Sleek serpent

Despite its fearsome reputation, the adder is generally a shy, non-aggressive snake. A skilled predator, it will strike passing prey with a venomous bite, and then track down the dead or dying animal using its keen sense of smell. Young adders do not feed during the first year of their life.

Scented stag

Unlike true deer, the Siberian musk deer has tusk-like canine teeth rather than antlers. As its common name indicates, the male produces a sought after musk, one of the most expensive animal products in the world. In an adult male, the musk gland produces about 28 grams of musk, a dark red-brown, waxy substance,  the smell of which can be detected by humans at just 1 part in 3,000.

Ferocious feline

Around the size of a house cat, Pallas’s cat appears larger due its thick fur, which seasonally changes colour to provide camouflage. A master predator, Pallas’s cat feeds on small mammals, birds and lizards which it stalks in open country, its low set ears helping it to avoid detection in areas where there is little cover.

Ancient equine

Przewalski’s horse is the last true wild horse and was named after Russian explorer Nikolai Przewalski who first discovered the subspecies in the 1870s. Human impacts gradually pushed Przewalski’s horse to the furthest limits of its range, and the last wild specimen was recorded in 1968 in southwest Mongolia. Fortunately, captive-bred individuals were able to be subsequently reintroduced to the wild, a real success story for conservation.

Do you have a favourite species from Mongolia? Share it with us on Twitter or Facebook, or leave a comment using the form below. To learn more about these animals and other Mongolian species, why not explore ARKive today?

Hannah MacMillan, Wildscreen USA Intern

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In early 2012 a remarkable rediscovery was made on Dinagat Island, a tiny island in the Philippines. Dr Milada Řeháková, a zoologist from the Czech Republic, was conducting a survey of the tarsiers on the island when her programmer husband Václav Řehák spotted a huge hairy grey-brown rat with a conspicuously black-white tail foraging in the canopy. Dr William Oliver of the Philippines Biodiversity Conservation Foundation said that Milada had called him from the island “full of excitement and frustration” because while her husband had seen it, she had not!

The reason for her great excitement was the possibility that the animal her husband had spotted could be the elusive Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat, a species only known from a single specimen collected in 1975. Cloud rats are the biggest and most spectacular of the murids, endemic only to a few Philippine islands. The Critically Endangered Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat is the least known among them, and having not been seen again since its discovery, despite numerous searches, many feared it may have become extinct.

Fortunately, they both spotted the cloud rat again a week later, and were able to photograph and film this species for the first time ever, allowing this exciting rediscovery to be scientifically confirmed. The ARKive team were of course thrilled when Milada got in touch to tell us about the discovery, and kindly allowed us to include the images and footage in ARKive.

While the rediscovery is great news, the future for the Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat still hangs in the balance as mining and logging pose a serious threat to wildlife on Dinagat, and only one small locally protected area exists on the whole island. Milada tells us that “Effective conservation activities must be undertaken to assure future survival of this, once lost and now rediscovered species. Local people should be proud on this unique species that is not found anywhere else in the world and should be part of its conservation”.

You can read more about the rediscovery here.

Claire Lewis, ARKive Media Researcher

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When biologist and photographer Alexandr Pospech got in touch with ARKive to offer some rare primate images we were understandably excited. During June 2011, Alex explained that he had participated in an expedition and study led by Brent Loken of Ethical Expeditions in the Wehea forest, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. In order to monitor the local wildlife, the team set up camera traps around a newly discovered mineral spring or ‘sepan’, and when checking the images three weeks later they turned up some surprising results.

Dr. Stanislav Lhota confirmed that the team had recorded images of Miller’s grizzled langur, an Endangered subspecies of Hose’s langur. Miller’s grizzled langur is extremely rare and was previously listed as one of the world’s 25 most endangered primates – at one time some people even feared that it may have become extinct. The team’s discovery not only confirmed that a population of Miller’s grizzled langurs remains, it also provided evidence that the subspecies’ range extends further than previously thought.

With the help of his assistant Yatim, Alexandr visited the place several times during following week and was able to build hides in which he spent 3 days in order to observe and photograph the langurs, producing the first ever high quality images of this rare subspecies, which he has kindly contributed to ARKive.

Alexandr told us “I put a lot of energy into my photos with the goal of helping nature conservation. The days spent on photographing these langurs were extremely exhausting. When I came back late in the evening, took care of all the photo equipment and prepared for the next day, there were only about 3 hours left to sleep before setting up to the forest again. When I first saw the langurs in the viewfinder, I knew the effort was worth it. But the task of protecting wildlife all over the World has just started. And everyone can help.”

Make sure you check out Alexandr’s images on ARKive, and read more about his work on his website. You can also read the article produced by the team, which was published earlier this year in the American Journal of Primatology.

Claire Lewis, ARKive Media Researcher

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Fires raging in an Indonesian swamp forest are severely threatening the rare Sumatran orangutan that occurs there, and may have already contributed to the deaths of around a third of individuals in the population.

Sumatran orangutan male, female and infant

Fire hazard

The Tripa forest in Aceh province, Indonesia, provides crucial habitat for the world’s densest population of the Critically Endangered Sumatran orangutan. However, according to conservationists, a third of the orangutans in the forest may already have died as a result of the fires, while the rest of the population remains seriously at risk.

Habitat loss driving declines

In the past twenty years, 80% of orangutan habitat in Indonesia has been lost to illegal logging, gold mining and conversion to permanent agriculture, notably palm oil plantations.

In the Tripa forest, palm oil companies have drained large areas of peat swamp which, in addition to severely fragmenting and degrading the orangutan’s forest habitat, has created fire ‘hot spots’ at many of the palm oil plantations.

A total of 92 fire hot spots were recorded between 19 and 25 March 2012, and recent images show that only just over 12,000 hectares of the original 60,000 hectare forest now remain.

Male Sumatran orangutan swinging through trees

The frequency and severity of these fires have had a huge impact on the wildlife in the region. The scale of the problem is reminiscent of the 1997 and 1998 forest fires which raged through much of Borneo, during which time it was estimated that around one third of the island’s orangutan population was killed.

Graham Usher, of the Foundation for a Sustainable Ecosystem, said that, “If there is a prolonged drought and the fire continues … then orangutans, tigers and sun bears within it will be exterminated before the end of 2012.”

Sumatran orangutan mother and infant feeding

A global tragedy

Tripa used to be home to around 3,000 Sumatran orangutans in the 1990s. Today, fewer than 200 individuals are thought to survive there. According to Ian Singleton, conservation director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, “It is no longer several years away, but just a few months or even weeks before this iconic creature disappears. We are currently watching a global tragedy.”

Between 2009 and 2011, 100 orangutans died, and estimates suggest that a further 100 individuals have been killed in recent months, either in the conversion of the forest to palm oil plantations or by starvation and malnutrition.

Read the article in the Guardian: Rare Sumatran orangutans dying as fires rage in Indonesian swamp forest.

Find out more about the Sumatran orangutan on ARKive.

Helen Roddis, ARKive Species Text Author

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At least one leopard dies every day in India, according to a report released last week by the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI). Half of those deaths are caused by poachers, who target these magnificent big cats for their skins, claws and other body parts.

African leopard

The tip of the iceberg

WPSI say that at least 356 Indian leopards died in 2011, with poaching accounting for 52% of all the deaths recorded. However, according to WPSI, these figures are likely to be just a fraction of the real numbers of leopards killed each year in India.

“The cases that we have reported are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Anish Andheria, of Sanctuary Asia, which helped collect the data, “The loss could be three to five times more because most of the incidents happened outside the forest range and also due to improper intelligence gathering.”

Indian leopard (black morph)

Causes of death

Although poaching was the single biggest cause of death in 2011, it appears that other human activities may also play a significant role in leopard mortality. Around 12% of Indian leopards were killed last year as a result of human-leopard conflict, while a further 4% died after unsuccessful attempts to rescue the animals from human threats, such as farmers’ snares. Collisions with vehicles caused 8% of Indian leopard deaths last year, and around 5% of deaths were as a result of interactions with other animals, while the remaining 18% of leopards died from unknown causes.

According to WPSI, 30% of the leopard deaths occurred in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, which is also the state with the highest number of poached tigers.

Leopard deaths continue rising

Despite being protected under India’s Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, the number of Indian leopards killed each year has been rising steadily over the past decade. In addition to the 356 leopards killed in 2011, there were 180 leopard deaths in 2010, 161 in 2009 and 126 in 2007. This year appears to be following a similar trend, with around 70 leopards killed so far in 2012, half by poachers.

African leopard standing on treetrunk

World’s leopards under increasing pressure

Leopards are found throughout sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, although their range has become smaller in recent years and their populations increasingly fragmented.

Despite being listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and being protected by law in most range states, leopards continue to be threatened by poaching, illegal trade and habitat loss. All nine subspecies of leopard as classified as Near Threatened (NT) on the IUCN Red List.

Read the full article in the Scientific American.

Find out more about the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

View more leopard images on ARKive.

Helen Roddis, ARKive Species Text Author

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