Museum Specimen Mount Gaoligong Flying Squirrels Are Wild Discoveries

Summary: Mount Gaoligong flying squirrels account for two collected, physical and two observed, photographed wild discoveries in 2017 and 2018 in southwest China.

Quan Li et al., "Discovery and Description of a Mysterious Asian Flying Squirrel (Rodentia, Sciuridae, Biswamoyopterus) From Mount Gaoligong, Southwest China," ZooKeys (July 18, 2019), page 155: CC BY 4.0 International, via Pensoft ZooKeys

The article Discovery and Description of a Mysterious Asian Flying Squirrel (Rodentia, Sciuridae, Boswamoyopterus) from Mount Gaoligong, southwest China, in ZooKeys July 18, 2019, announces wild discoveries of Mount Gaoligong flying squirrels.

Co-authors Stephen Jackson, Ming Jiang, Xue-Long Jiang, Fei Li, Quan Li, Xue-You Li, Wen-Yu Song and Wei Zhao begin with a two-year-old specimen from January 2017. They compared it with one physical and two photographed wild discoveries from the eastern and western slopes of Mount Gaoligong, Yunnan Province, southwest China, in 2018. Two physical and two photographed specimens display distinct colors, skulls and teeth to deserve the taxonomy Biswamoyopterus gaoligongensis, for Biswamoy Biswas (June 2, 1923-Aug. 10, 1994).

Mount Gaoligong flying squirrels entertain as close relatives Laotian giant (Biswamoyopterus biswasi, "winged Biswamoy Biswas") and Namdapha (Biswamoyopterus laoensis, "winged Biswamoy belonging to Laos") flying squirrels.

Kunming Institute of Zoology (KIZ) 034924 and 035622 specimens feature Biswamoyopterus gaoligongensis ("winged Biswamoy belonging to Gaoligong") skulls with respective male head-body-tail and female or male head skins.

Mount Gaoligong flying squirrels, such as the KIZ 034914 male from January 2017, get 17.32-inch (440-millimeter) head-body and 20.47-inch (520-millimeter) tail lengths and 48.32-ounce (1,370-gram) masses. Red-brown heads have gray-yellow crowns and naked ears whose rear margins basally hold one black-, long-haired front and one basally white-haired, terminally black-haired rear ear tufts. Red-brown is the color of the back, shoulders, limbs, tail and upper and outer-edged lower patagium ("gold-bordered tunic") membrane between front and rear limbs for gliding.

Red-based, white-tipped fur joins in speckled patterns along the back swatch between the shoulders and the uropatagium (from Greek οὐρά, "tail" and Latin patagium, "gold-bordered tunic").

Mount Gaoligong flying squirrels know red-brown front paws and black back paws, each with black digits, and cylindrical tails two-thirds black tipward and one-third red-brown basewards.

Mount Gaoligong flying squirrels look yellow-white in their throats, abdomens and outer-edged ventral (from Latin ventrālis, "abdominal") patagium membranes and black-brown in their male reproductive parts. They maintain large skulls that manifest prominent zygomatic (from Greek ζυγωματικός, "cheekbone") arches and short muzzles and make for short, wide skull outlines and head shapes. They net distinctly subsquare-outlined upper first and second molars, as large as upper fourth premolars, and distinctly outward- and rearward-pointing lower fourth premolars and second molars.

Mount Gaoligong flying squirrels offer lower jaws typical of flying squirrels and auditory bullae ("hearing bubbles"), incisors and upper jaws respectively atypically honeycombed, yellow-white and wide-open.

The Pteromyini (from Greek πτερόν, "wing") tribe and Sciuridae (from Greek σκιά, "shadow," οὐρά, "tail" and -ειδής, "-like") family member populates western Yunnan's broad-leaved evergreen forests.

Physical specimens queued up in Baihualin village, Lujiang township, Longyang county, Baoshan city at 6,692.91-foot (2,040-meter) Irawaddy and Nu (Salween) River watershed altitudes above sea level. Field survey team members in 2018 realized photographed wild discoveries of Mount Gaoligong flying squirrels at an altitude of 6,561.68 feet (2,000 meters) above sea level. Banchang 5.59 miles (9 kilometers) south and Linjiapu's Daphniphyllum (from Greek δάφνη, "laurel" and φύλλον, "leaf") trees 6.21 miles (10 kilometers) west of Baihualin support specimens.

Lead author and specialist Quan Li tempers the thrill of physical and photographed wild discoveries with threats of forest-clearing and poaching to Mount Gaoligong flying squirrels.

Quan Li et al., "Discovery and Description of a Mysterious Asian Flying Squirrel (Rodentia, Sciuridae, Biswamoyopterus) From Mount Gaoligong, Southwest China," ZooKeys (July 18, 2019), page 149: CC BY 4.0 International, via Pensoft ZooKeys

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Quan Li et al., "Discovery and Description of a Mysterious Asian Flying Squirrel (Rodentia, Sciuridae, Biswamoyopterus) From Mount Gaoligong, Southwest China," ZooKeys (July 18, 2019), page 155: CC BY 4.0 International, via Pensoft ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/33678/ (image URL @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/33678/element/2/15//; image URL @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/33678/zoom/fig/15/)

Quan Li et al., "Discovery and Description of a Mysterious Asian Flying Squirrel (Rodentia, Sciuridae, Biswamoyopterus) From Mount Gaoligong, Southwest China," ZooKeys (July 18, 2019), page 149: CC BY 4.0 International, via Pensoft ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/33678/ (image URL @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/33678/element/2/11//; image URL @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/33678/zoom/fig/11/)

For further information:

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Available @ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/environment/new-species-of-flying-squirrel-added-to-worlds-rarest-animals-list/18/07/

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Available @ https://gizmodo.com/adorable-new-species-of-flying-squirrel-discovered-in-c-1836502598

Hays, Brooks. 18 July 2019. "Extremely Rare Species of Flying Squirrel Discovered in Southwest China." UPI > Science News.
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Available @ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/88700294/88700297

Li, Quan; Xue-You Li; Stephen M. Jackson; Fei Li; Ming Jiang; Wei Zhao; Wen-Yu Song; and Xue-Long Jiang. 18 July 2019. "Discovery and Description of a Mysterious Asian Flying Squirrel Rodentia, Sciuridae,Biswamoyopterus) from Mount Gaoligong, Southwest China." ZooKeys 864: 147-160. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.864.33678. http://zookeys.pensoft.net
Available @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/33678/

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