Pygmy tarsiers are small primates with dense gray to dark brown silky fur to keep warm in a damp, chilly habitat, weighing about 2 ounces (50 grams). They’re typically about 4 to 6 inches long with elongated hind limbs and a thin, tufted tail of about 8 to 12 inches that provides balance and support.
These shy primates are the epitome of cute — cuddly, huge-eyed creatures that protrude out of their eye sockets with large ears to match. Their eyes cannot move, so they turn their head to hunt, rotating it as much as 180 degrees like an owl. Babies are born with their eyes open and well-furred.
They’re nocturnal insectivores that eat live moving prey, including small vertebrates. Unlike most other primates, they have long spindly fingers with claws instead of nails that allow them to grip trees easily in a mossy environment, and disk-like adhesive pads on the digit tips.
The adorable little tarsiers cling vertically to trees and leap from trunk to trunk, capable of jumping almost 10 feet (3 meters).
Also known as the Mountain Tarsier or the Lesser Spectral Tarsier, the pygmy tarsier is found on central Sulawesi, Indonesia.
“They always look like they have a perpetual smile on their face, which adds to the attraction.” says physical anthropologist Sharon Gursky-Doyen, a Texas A&M university professor who found the presumed lost species.
The last one spotted alive was in 1921 when they were last collected for a museum before the species went into hiding.
They were rediscovered when 2 Indonesian scientists trapping rats accidentally trapped and killed one in 2000.
Sharon traveled into the mountains of Sulawesi Island to confirm that the pygmy tarsier was unequivocally extinct, but ended up becoming the first person in more than 80 years to spot a live one.
“It was very, very euphoric, but I was shaking like a leaf.” said Sharon. “I was shaking so much that I could barely handle him.”
The university team trapped 2 males and a female using mist nets on Mount Rore Katimbo in Lore Lindu National Park over a 2-month period, and placed radio collars on the furry little creatures for tracking. A fourth one was spotted but got away.
“Until that time, everyone really didn’t believe that they existed because people had been going out looking for them for decades and nobody had seen them or heard them.” Sharon said.
“I have the dubious honor of being the only person in the world to have been bitten by (a pygmy tarsier).” she added.
“My field assistant was trying to hold him still while I was attaching a radio collar around its neck. It’s very hard to hold them because they can turn their heads around 180 degrees. As I’m trying to close the radio collar, he turned his head and nipped my finger.”
Her team observed the first live pygmy tarsier in August at an elevation of about 6,900 feet.
The climb was treacherous — Sharon broke her fibula or calf bone, and her field assistants were slipping and falling as much as she was.
“Everything was covered in moss and the clouds are right at the top of that mountain. It’s always very, very foggy, very, very dense. It’s cold up there. When you’re one degree from the equator, you expect to be hot. You don’t expect to be shivering most of the time. That’s what we were doing.” she said.
“Finding them on this mountaintop really clarified for me at least that they are a distinct species and they’re not extinct. But they are threatened.” said Sharon, adding that other primates still may be discovered.
It’s not known how many pygmy tarsiers live in the mountains, but the professor explains that finding the pygmy tarsier means that other animals on the island may have smaller ranges than previously believed, making them more vulnerable to extinction.
The researchers say they hope that the Indonesian government will protect them from the encroaching development occurring in the animals’ home range. While the pygmy tarsier lives in a national park, about 60 villages of local Indonesians are also inside park boundaries.
“The villages are getting closer and closer to this area, and they’re going up the mountaintop. That is going to cause severe problems, if it hasn’t already.” the professor said.
“My hope is now that the Indonesian government recognizes where they are, that they’re actually on this mountaintop, that they actually exist, will prohibit the locals from going up farther on this mountain, and that they will actually have certain areas within the park that they will cut off from human exploitation.”
The mammalian group of primates includes lemurs, monkeys, apes and people. The handful of tarsier species live on various Asian islands.
