New records of a lost species and a geographic range expansion for sengis in the Horn of Africa

Steven Heritage; Houssein Rayaleh; Djama G Awaleh; Galen B Rathbun

doi:10.7717/peerj.9652

New records of a lost species and a geographic range expansion for sengis in the Horn of Africa

PeerJ. 2020 Aug 18:8:e9652. doi: 10.7717/peerj.9652. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Steven Heritage^{1

2}, Houssein Rayaleh³, Djama G Awaleh⁴, Galen B Rathbun⁵

Affiliations

¹ Division of Fossil Primates, Duke Lemur Center, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
² Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
³ Association Djibouti Nature, Djibouti City, Republic of Djibouti.
⁴ Department of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ministry of Urban Affairs, Environment and Tourism, Djibouti City, Republic of Djibouti.
⁵ Institute of Biodiversity Science and Sustainability, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Abstract

The Somali Sengi or Somali Elephant-shrew ('Elephantulus' revoilii, Macroscelidea, Mammalia) has been considered a "lost species" and is primarily known from about 39 museum specimens, with no new vouchered occurrence records since the early 1970s. The scientific literature contains no data concerning living Somali Sengi individuals and the species' current Data Deficient conservation status is attributable to an absence of modern information. Almost everything that has been published about the species is derived from anatomical examinations of historic specimens, gleaned from museum collection notes, or inferred from the known habits and ecology of other sengi taxa. Here we report new evidence that the Somali Sengi is currently extant. These data include voucher specimens, georeferenced occurrence localities, body measurements, habitat parameters, and DNA sequences. While the species is historically documented as endemic to Somalia, these new records are from the neighboring Republic of Djibouti and thus expand the Somali Sengi's known range in the Horn of Africa. Furthermore, Djiboutian locality data near international borders suggests that the Somali Sengi is also a current inhabitant of both Somalia and Ethiopia. Criteria that inform conservation status assessments (e.g., suitable habitat contiguity and occurrence in wildlife protected areas) can be positively characterized in Djibouti and therefore bode well for the survival of the Somali Sengi species. New data also inform previously undocumented substrate and sheltering affiliations. DNA analyses indicate that the Somali Sengi is a descendant of the Macroscelidini lineage and therefore reveal that the species' referral to the genus Elephantulus is incompatible with sengi phylogeny. This taxonomic issue is resolved by recognizing a new genus replacement and recombinant binomial that redesignates the Somali Sengi as Galegeeska revoilii (gen. nov., nov. comb). An analysis of ancestral biogeography suggests that the Somali Sengi has inhabited the Horn of Africa for more than 5.4 million years-and the recognition of the species' phylogenetic ancestry appends the already remarkable biogeographic story of the Macroscelidini tribe.

Keywords: Biogeography; Conservation; Djibouti; Elephant-shrews; Macroscelidea; Phylogenetic Systematics; Sengis; Somali Sengi; Somalia; Taxonomy.

Grants and funding

The authors were supported by the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences at Stony Brook University, a fellowship from the Turkana Basin Institute, and a fellowship from the California Academy of Sciences. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.