psy: Sengi

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Sengis, also called elephant shrews or jumping shrews, are small insectivorous mammals native to Africa, belonging to the family Macroscelididae, in the order Macroscelidea. Their traditional common English name "elephant shrew" comes from a perceived resemblance between their long noses and the trunk of an elephant, and their superficial similarity with shrews (family Soricidae) in the order Eulipotyphla. However, phylogenetic analysis has revealed that the family was not properly classified with true shrews, in fact being more closely related to elephants. In 1997, the biologist Jonathan Kingdon proposed that they instead be called "sengis" (singular sengi), a term derived from the Bantu…

Evidence: 47 • authority: 72

Rhynchocyon is a genus of sengis in the family Macroscelididae. Members of this genus are known colloquially as giant sengis. They are a ground-dwelling mammal, significantly larger than their relatives in the order Macroscelidea that live primarily in dense forests across eastern Africa. Habitats range from eastern Africa's coastal forests, Rift Valley highlands, and the Congo basin. The species is widely threatened, with two of four assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species. Habitat fragmentation from the growth of human settlements and activities are the primary threats to their populations. The genus contains the following five speci…

Evidence: 41 • authority: 92

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

Evidence: 39 • authority: 92

On the Phylogenetic History of the Sanje Mangabey (<i>Cercocebus sanjei</i>), Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania.. An accurate understanding of phylogeny, including intraspecific diversity, is key for defining conservation measures. The Sanje mangabey ( Cercocebus sanjei ) is an Endangered primate endemic to the Udzungwa Mountains in Tanzania that inhabits montane forest fragments and occurs in two populations-Mwanihana Forest and Uzungwa Scarp Nature Reserve-located 100 km apart. The phylogenetic position of the Sanje mangabey relative to other Cercocebus species remains unclear. We aimed to clarify the phylogeny of the Sanje mangabey and estimate its divergence time from other speci…

Evidence: 35 • authority: 92

Blood host preferences and competitive inter-species dynamics within an African malaria vector species complex inferred from signs of animal activity around aquatic larval habitats.. Background The feeding behaviours of the malaria vector Anopheles arabiensis, and its competitive relationships with other sibling species within the Anopheles gambiae complex, remain largely unexplored within well conserved natural ecosystems, where its known preferred hosts are scarce or absent. Methods Potential aquatic habitats were surveyed for An. gambiae complex larvae across a gradient of natural ecosystem integrity in southern Tanzania, encompassing fully domesticated human settlements, a partially enc…