Boosmansbos long-tailed shrew rediscovered 46 years after last recorded sighting

CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit speaks with Dr Andrew Turner from CapeNature.

Listen below:

One of the Western Cape’s most mysterious mammals, the Boosmansbos long-tailed forest shrew (scientific name: Myosorex longicaudatus boosmani), has been sighted, 46 years after it was last recorded.

Conservationists from CapeNature, Grootvadersbosch Conservancy and Helihack, together with volunteer biologists, were ecstatic at finding one of these tiny mammals on the edge of a pristine forest patch on CapeNature’s Boosmansbos Wilderness Area.

First described in 1979 by scientist Nico Dippenaar, the shrew was recognised as a unique subspecies, geographically isolated from its relatives by the Gouritz Valley.

Its limited known range, combined with forest habitat loss and climate change, led to it being listed as critically endangered in 2016.

Previous attempts to catch the elusive shrew using standard rodent live traps had been unsuccessful, and it was hoped that a new method would be more successful.

The team was airlifted to a wilderness campsite and then hiked down to set 76 pitfall traps across various habitats.

Each trap was prepared with bedding, shelter, and the occasional earthworm.

At first, the traps yielded nothing — but one of the final traps revealed a small mammal with a six centimetre tail, unmistakably the long-lost Boosmansbos long-tailed forest shrew.

Weighing 13.7 grams, it was measured, photographed, and released unharmed into its forest habitat.

A genetic sample of the shrew will now be analysed to clarify its relationship to lower-altitude relatives, while further research is needed to better understand its life history, behavioural ecology, and the status of its only known population.

Intensive surveys of other forest patches may yet reveal more about its distribution.

But for now, it’s enough to celebrate that the special shrew of Boosmansbos is still alive and well!

"This shrew is only known to this forest of Boosmansbos... that's why we were very keen to see if it was still there. It wasn't by accident, it was by design that the main exercise was finding the Boosmansbos long-tailed shrew."

- Andrew Turner, CapeNature

"To see whether it is critically endangered or whether it occurs in some other forests, so that's the next step, but the first crucial step of proving that it's still there has been taken."

- Andrew Turner, CapeNature

"It was just one animal we managed to get this time so we are going to go up later in the year to have another look to see where else we might find the shrew..."

- Andrew Turner, CapeNature

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full conversation.