A mole with no eyes, iridescent fur and hearing superpowers has been rediscovered in the sand dune area of South Africa. 87 years after it was first explained to science. Since then they were thought to be practically extinct.
new discovery Winton’s golden mole (Cryptochloris wintoni) was confirmed through environmental DNA analysis by a team of conservationists and geneticists from the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and the University of Pretoria in the aforementioned African country. The results of the research were published in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation. This is the eleventh such international initiative launched in 2017. 25 lost animals The world’s most wanted.
As for his physical characteristics; a chubby-looking creature with short, dense fur, light gray in color and a yellowish tint.usually it barely reaches 70 to 85 millimeters in length.
Another feature that stands out in its appearance is this: they don’t have eyes, because they don’t actually need them, because they spend most of their lives digging tunnels underground. To do this, their legs have pointed claws.
Extract DNA from soil
The EWT-led team used the emerging technique of eDNA, the DNA that animals shed as they move through the environment, often in the form of skin cells, hair and body excretions.
In addition to living in largely inaccessible burrows, golden moles They have an extremely sensitive sense of hearing and can detect vibrations caused by movements in the ground.This helps prevent them from being seen from the surface. They also rarely leave tunnels visible from the surface. while moving under the sand.
“Extracting DNA from soil is not all about challenges“But even before this project, we were honing our skills and refining our techniques, and we were pretty confident that if Winton’s golden mole was around, we could find it and identify it by sequencing its DNA,” said Samantha Mynhardt. said. Conservation geneticist at the Endangered Wildlife Trust and Stellenbosch University.
After collecting more 100 soil samples in June 2021 The team carried out a complex study of beaches and dunes along the northwestern coast of South Africa and extensive genetic analysis on each specimen, including Port Nolloth Beach, the only place where Winton’s golden mole was found in 1936. Various species of golden moles that live in the sand.
The challenge was to determine whether De Winton’s golden mole was one of them.because only one reference DNA was available. They had to wait a year before the second genetic sequence of the species, taken from a specimen stored in a museum in Cape Town, became publicly available and the identity was finally confirmed.