New Species of Deer Discovered in Vietnam
8/22/97
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Headline: New Species of Deer Discovered in Vietnam
Source: Agence France-Presse
Date: 8/22/97
Copyright 1997 by Agence France-Presse
GENEVA, Aug 22 (AFP) - A new species of deer has been discovered
in the mountains in western Vietnam on the border with Laos, the
Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced Friday.
The mammal is a small stag belonging to the muntjac (or barking
deer) family. It has black fur and weighs about 15 kilos (33
pounds), only half the weight of the other muntjac species in
Vietnam.
The animal has been named the Truong Son muntjac after the
Truong Son mountain range where it lives.
Scientists from the WWF, Vietnam's agriculture and rural
development ministry and the University of Danang discovered the
mammal in April. It is the third different type of muntjac
discovered in Vietnam since 1990. The other two species were found
in 1992 and 1994.
It is also one of less than 10 new species of large mammals
discovered in the world this century, WWF said.
The scientists were not able to observe the animal directly and
made the discovery from skulls found in villages in the area. They
established it was a new species after analysing the animal's tissue
while further information was provided by Vietnamese hunters, WWF
spokeswoman Chng Soh Koon said.
The Truong Son muntjac lives in forests between 400 and 1,000
metres (1320 and 3,300 feet) in altitude. Its small size allows the
animal to move easily through the dense vegetation.
The WWF is organising an expedition to the region to get a
glimpse of the animal and to search for new plant species, Koon
said.
"It just goes to show that this transitional zone between the
forests of the northern and southern regions of Vietnam is truly a
biodiversity hotspot, the chief botanist at Vietnam's Forest
Inventory and Planning Institute, Doctor Vu Van Dung, said.
The Trunong Son mountain range which separates Vietnam and Laos
sheltered the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam war. Despite the
conflict, the region still contains one of the richest and most
diverse habitats in Indochina, the WWF said.
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