Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
analysed the island faunas of Pemba, Zanzibar
and Mafia. C. J. P. Ionides made casual observa-
tions and collecions in southeasten Tanzania
during the 1950s. In 1951 Swynnerton & Hay-
man published an inventory of Tanganyika's
mammal fauna and between 1971 and 1982 one
of us brought out a study of East African mam-
mals that was comprehensive at the ime of its
publication (Kingdon, 1971-82). Rodgers, Owen
& Homewood (1982) and Grubb (1983)
published papers on the biogeography of East
African forest mammals and Struhsaker (1981)
discussed how East African primate species may
be related to westen populaions. Pakenham
(1984), Swai (1984) and Mturi (1984) have dealt
mainly with the relationship of Zanzibar forest
mammals to those further west. Howell & Jenkins
(1984), Jenkins (1984) and Hutterer (1986) have
expanded our knowledge of shrew taxonomy and
disribuion and Kock & Howell (1988) that of
forest bats.
There is sill much basic collecting and
documentaion to be done on the smaller mam-
mals of Tanzania's easten forests. For example,
in 1981 a new subspecies of mangabey monkey
was found in the Uzungwa Mountains (Home-
wood & Rodgers, 1981), and in the years 1984-6
three new species of shrews were described from
the Uluguru and Usambara mountains. Even
older collecions, such as those or the Briish
Museum by Willoughby P. Lowe in the 1930s
have, on re-examinaion, tuned up undescribed
forms, such as the exremely isolated and disinct
servaline genet, Genetta servalina lowei, from
Dabaga in the Uzungwa Mountains.
There is also uncertainy about the taxonomic
status of some species. For example, it is sill not
known whether the smaller galagos belong to two
or three disinct species. The Zanzibar galago,
Ga/ago zanzibaicus
(which was once regarded as a
subspecies of
G. senegalensis)
is idely disributed
through the orests of the easten coasts and
mountains. The Senegal bushbaby,
G. senegalen-
sis, has also been recorded from forest as well as
its more usual habitat in drier thickets and wood-
lands. The overall distribution of
G. zanzibaricus
is currently in some doubt, because it may have
been confused in some areas with the minuscule
G. emiovii. Very small animals collected from
the Rondo Plateau in 1952 have been allocated to
this species (Swynnerton & Hayman, 1951; S.
Bearder, in litt.). It is now thought possible that G.
demidovii occurs in a disconinuous scatter from
Zaire across to the Southern Highlands in Malawi
and to the Indian Ocean littoral.
One of us J. K.) has worked mainly in the
Southern Highlands, while K. H. has visited and
trapped in several forest areas from the Usam-
baras through the Uzungwa as well as coastal for-
est and thicket (Howell, 1981). Primatologists K.
Homewood, S. Wasser and F. Mturi have also
been acive in making observaions in forest areas.
Ecologist W. A. Rodgers has paricipated in and
simulated studies of mammals, and it was during
a brief expediion by Homewood and Rogers that
the Sanje mangabey was discovered. There can
be little doubt that systemaic study will augment
the species listed here and add new species or
subspecies to the inventory. The raios and
figures quoted in subsequent pages should there-
fore take into account our incomplete knowledge.
Measures of endemism in Easten
African forest fauna
African mammalian fauna from forests tends to be
radically different from that of the savannas that
surround it. Considering what a minuscule pro-
porion of Tanzania is covered in moist forest,
only about 2%, this fauna is astonishingly rich:
24% of the mammal fauna or the easten and
southwesten half of Tanzania is forest-adapted
or forest-dependent. A few species, mainly the
larger ones and some bats, inhabit both forest and
non-forest but tis is not the rule in most groups.
Typical species found in both forest and non-
forest habitats are elephant, buffalo, bushbuck,
blotched genet and civet. Of bats, the giant leaf-
nosed bat Hipposieros commersoni, the hairy bat
Myotis bocagi and the pipisrelle Pipistrellus nanus
are examples. The proporion of forest mammal
species restricted to montane areas is 11% . About
9% are known only from lowland forest, while the
rest range through both highland and lowland
forests. Nonetheless, very distincive local
populations such as montane hyrax and squirrels
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