The Philippine Tarsier
The Philippine Tarsier
IJsselstein, Friday, 18 May 2001 (updated: Saturday, 24 April 2004)
The Philippine tarsier, (Tarsius syrichta) is very peculiar small animal. In fact it is one of the smallest known primates, no larger than a adult men's hand. Mostly active at night, it lives on a diet of insects. Folk traditions sometimes has it that tarsiers eat charcoal, but actually they retrieve the insects from (sometimes burned) wood. It can be found in the islands of Samar, Leyte, Bohol, and Mindanao in the Philippines.
Let's keep an eye on the time with this exclusive tarsier clock,
USD 15.99.
If no action is taken, the tarsier might not survive. Although it is a protected species, and the practice of catching them and then selling them as stuffed tarsiers to tourists has stopped, the species is still threatened by the destruction of his natural forest habitat. Many years of both legal and illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture have greatly reduced these forests, and reduced the tarsier population to a dangerously small size. If no action is taken now, the Philippine tarsier can soon be added to the list of extinct species.
Not "The World Smallest Monkey"
"The world's smallest monkey" is an often heard slogan. However, it is not a monkey. In truth, its classification is somewhat problematic. Some scientists consider tarsiers to be a taxonomic suborder among the primates. While, because they are closely related to lemurs, lorises and bushbabies, others classify them with the prosimians to which these animals belong. Monkeys and apes belong to the suborder of anthropoids. The complete taxonomic classification thus is: Class | Mammalia | Order | Primates | Suborder | Prosimii/Haplorrhini | Infraorder | Tarsiiformes | Superfamily | Tarsioidea |
In the Philippines, three very similar species have been described. It is very well possible that these species are actually a single species, developed into three races due to the physical separation
IJsselstein, Friday, 18 May 2001 (updated: Saturday, 24 April 2004)
The Philippine tarsier, (Tarsius syrichta) is very peculiar small animal. In fact it is one of the smallest known primates, no larger than a adult men's hand. Mostly active at night, it lives on a diet of insects. Folk traditions sometimes has it that tarsiers eat charcoal, but actually they retrieve the insects from (sometimes burned) wood. It can be found in the islands of Samar, Leyte, Bohol, and Mindanao in the Philippines.
Let's keep an eye on the time with this exclusive tarsier clock,
USD 15.99.
If no action is taken, the tarsier might not survive. Although it is a protected species, and the practice of catching them and then selling them as stuffed tarsiers to tourists has stopped, the species is still threatened by the destruction of his natural forest habitat. Many years of both legal and illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture have greatly reduced these forests, and reduced the tarsier population to a dangerously small size. If no action is taken now, the Philippine tarsier can soon be added to the list of extinct species.
Not "The World Smallest Monkey"
"The world's smallest monkey" is an often heard slogan. However, it is not a monkey. In truth, its classification is somewhat problematic. Some scientists consider tarsiers to be a taxonomic suborder among the primates. While, because they are closely related to lemurs, lorises and bushbabies, others classify them with the prosimians to which these animals belong. Monkeys and apes belong to the suborder of anthropoids. The complete taxonomic classification thus is: Class | Mammalia | Order | Primates | Suborder | Prosimii/Haplorrhini | Infraorder | Tarsiiformes | Superfamily | Tarsioidea |
In the Philippines, three very similar species have been described. It is very well possible that these species are actually a single species, developed into three races due to the physical separation