It feels good to be able to blog about the discovery of yet another unknown carnivore, this time from Madagascar - BBC - Earth News - New carnivorous mammal species found in Madagascar.
The importance of the discovery of new mammalian predators cannot be overestimated. The existence of mammalian predators is indicative of a healthy ecology. When a habitat starts to degrade the first species to go are the predators because the food chain “dries up”.
In this case the mammal is a vontsira (Salanoia durrelli), a little known animal of the family Eupleridae whose best known member is the Fossa, a type of true mongoose:
It has been given the common name Durrell’s vontsira in honour of Gerald Durrell, the founder of Jersey Zoo. It is thought that it lives in marshland and may prey on molluscs and crustaceans.
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