Wildsolutions

New desert warthog records for Laikipia County, central Kenya

By Yvonne de Jong & Tom Butynski

There are two species of warthog, the well-known common warthog Phacochoerus africanus and the desert warthog Phacochoerus aethiopicus. The latter occupies the Horn of Africa and Kenya but it once occurred in South Africa and, perhaps, Namibia, where it was known as the ‘Cape warthog’. The desert warthog, long overlooked by zoologists, is one of Africa’s least studied and most poorly-known large mammals. Although this pig was described in 1766, confusion concerning its taxonomy resulted in the recognition of only one species of warthog, the common warthog.

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Annotated list of large birds extirpated from Laikipia County, Kenya, and some of conservation concern

Note
Thomas M. Butynski & Yvonne A. de Jong
Eastern Africa Primate Diversity and Conservation Program & Lolldaiga Hills Research Programme
Introduction

Laikipia County (ca. 9,700 km²), central Kenya, comprises a highly diverse landscape of grassland, bushland, woodland, dry forest, moist forest, riverine forest, wetland, and farmland.

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Mount Kenya potto, a ‘lost’ subspecies

By Yvonne de Jong & Tom Butynski, Eastern Africa Primate Diversity and Conservation Program & Lolldaiga Hills Research Programme

Mount Kenya potto Perodicticus ibeanus stockleyi Butynski & De Jong, 2007 is only known from one specimen, collected in 1938 at 1,830 meters above sea level on Mount Kenya, central Kenya. This subspecies has not been observed alive for 79 years and is, thus, considered to be both a ‘Critically Endangered’ subspecies (Butynski & De Jong, 2017a) and ‘lost’ subspecies.

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