Joining a number of high-profile species rediscoveries in the last two years, a tiny elephant shrew—also known as the Somali sengi—has been found to still be with us, and in quite healthy numbers too.
Despite not being documented by researchers since 1968, the sengi, a tiny big-eyed mouse with a long tail and a trunk-like nose that’s native to Somalia, was rediscovered living in well-preserved habitat in neighboring Djibouti, and in relatively-stable populations.
An expedition beginning in 2019 looked to utilize local knowledge about the sengi from the people of Djibouti who said it was still there. Sure enough, it took only one trap filled with coconut, peanut butter and yeast to find the little guy.
A distant relative of goliaths like the manatee and elephant, this tiny incarnation of trunked-mammals races around, vacuuming up ants with its nose in much the same way as the aardvark. How totally cute!!!
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