Adorably bizarre elephant shrew rediscovered after 50 years of science

The scientific community knew that Somali elephant sengi shrews once roamed parts of Africa. There were examples – some collected hundreds of years ago – in museum collections. It’s just that no scientist had recorded one in nature since the late 1960s.

Good news for elephant shrews: Somali sengi are alive and well in Djibouti, and there is plenty of evidence.

The conservation group Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC) announced on Tuesday the rediscovery of Somali “romantically monogamous” sengi. The elephant shrew was on the organization’s list of the organization’s 25 most wanted lost species.

GWC has released the first scientific documentation of a living Somali sengi in the form of a photo showing the mouse-like animal standing on rocks. The insect eater has a trunk-shaped nose and is more closely related to elephants than to actual shrews.

The research team caught an elusive Somali sengi in a trap baited with peanut butter, oatmeal and yeast.

“It was amazing,” Steven Heritage, a researcher at the Duke University Lemur Center, said in a statement. “When we opened the first trap and saw the little tuft of hair on the tip of his tail, we just looked at each other and couldn’t believe it,”

The Djibouti Nature Association research ecologist, Houssein Rayaleh, knew the Somali sengi was still there. “For us who live in Djibouti, and by extension in the Horn of Africa, we have never considered the sengis as ‘lost’,” he said during a question-and-answer session with GWC . “But this new research is bringing the Somali sengi back into the scientific community, which we appreciate.”

Rayaleh is co-author of an article on sengi published Tuesday in the journal PeerJ. Heritage is the main author.

Somali sengis appeared to be secure in their habitat, a range stretching from Somalia to Djibouti. The research team recommended that small mammals be given “least concern” status on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

“For Djibouti,” said Rayaleh, “this is an important story that highlights the great biodiversity of the country and the region and shows that there are opportunities for new science and research here.”