The species is one of the smallest currently living ungulates and looks like a mixture of deer and hare. For 28 years, no researcher had seen the Vietnamese mouse stag (Tragulus versicolor), then the species was first spotted in the wild again. The animals are known among experts as Vietnam-Kantschil.
The now discovered specimens have tapped into camera traps in the east of Vietnam, reports a team around Andrew Tilker of the organization Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC) in the USA in the journal "Nature Ecology and Evolution". In 1990, the last known animals of the species were shot dead by a hunter.
The scientists investigated nearby residents of the coastal town of Nha Trang, who had seen the animals with the silver-gray back of their coat. Within six months, 30 established photo traps recorded more than 200 times independently of each other a Vietnamese mouse.
How many of the animals live in the region, is currently not known, the researchers report. Due to the sometimes poor quality of the images you can not deduce how many different copies can be seen.
For the first time the Vietnamese mouse was described as a species in 1910. As a basis served five copies, the researchers had previously brought by expeditions to South and Central Vietnam. Then there was not a single confirmed sighting more. The GWC listed the Vietnamese mouse on its list of the 25 most wanted lost species.
For the local population, the animal had never disappeared
Due to their rarity, little is known about Vietnamese mouse deer. Other than the colloquial name suggests, the animals are neither related to mice nor to deer. They belong to the family of deer piglets, are only slightly larger than a hare and weigh less than five kilograms. They do not have an antler.
outhern Institute of Ecology / Global Wildlife Conservation / Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research / NCNP / AP
Vietnamese Mouse Deer: Caution Camera Trap
In addition, the mouse deer are loners, so mostly live alone. They walk on the top of their hooves and have two tiny fangs. The species can now scientifically be considered rediscovered, write the experts to Tilker, who has supervised the project as part of his doctoral student at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin. However, she had never disappeared for the local population.