One mouse lemur is reddish brown, while another runs more to gray. Are they members of different species, as suspected? Or should they be classed in the same species?
The same species, says a research team that included Anne Yoder, director of the Duke Lemur Center. The answer upset previous ideas about species classification of mouse lemurs, which are the world's tiniest primates and live exclusively on Madagascar, a Texas-sized island off the southeast coast of Africa.
The team tested 70 mouse lemurs that were thought to represent several different species, largely because of their varying coat colors. But by combining morphologic, genetic, geographic and ecologic data, the researchers determined that the lemurs actually belonged to the same species.
The coats are different, but research shows the two mouse lemurs are of the same species. Photo by L. R. Godfrey
The researchers said the finding, reported on Thursday, Nov. 16, in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, points to the need to consider a variety of lines of evidence, including genetic analysis, when identifying new species.
The team, led by a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, also included scientists from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
To read more about the study, click here.