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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

A bark in the dark reveals a hidden hyrax

Its neighbours scream, but a new species of tree hyrax — a cousin of the elephant — unleashes a rattling bark.
Camera-trap image of Dendrohyrax interfluvialis

Some tree hyraxes scream in the night, but the newly identified Dendrohyrax interfluvialis (above, camera-trap image) utters a complex series of squawks, rattles and barks. Credit: J. F. Oates et al./Zool. J. Linn. Soc.

Tree hyraxes don’t look like elephants. They are furry, they can climb trees and they weigh only around 3 kilograms. Yet these mammals, which live in African tropical forests, are among the closest contemporary relatives of the great grey beasts with swinging trunks.

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Nature 594, 477 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01606-7

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