An Italian biologist has discovered a hitherto unknown species of shrew - the biggest ever recorded - in the forests of Tanzania.
The new find is an outsize variety of the elephant shrew, measuring some 60cm from nose to tail and weighing 700g. This is about 25% bigger than the two species of elephant shrew that scientists already knew about.
Francesco Rovero, a researcher for the Tridentine Museum of Natural Sciences in Trento, first spotted the animal in photos taken by automatic cameras set up in the forests of the Udzungwa mountains.
''When I saw the photos I realised immediately that this shrew was quite different from all the other known ones. It was truly exciting,'' Rovero said.
Researchers later managed to capture four of the mammals even though the special traps they took for the purpose turned out to be too small.
Experts in California confirmed that they were a new species, the first in this branch of the animal kingdom for 126 years.
As well as being larger, the shrews found by Rovero look slightly different from their cousins, having grey faces and black bellies. Like other shrews, they have long pointed snouts and they eat insects.
There appear to be only two colonies of this new species, both living within an area of Tanzania measuring no more than 300 square kilometres.
Rovero said the animals were at risk of extinction because their natural habitat was shrinking due to deforestation.
''Let's hope this find helps boost efforts to protect this spectacular ecosystem,'' he said. ''The discovery highlights the importance of the rain forests of the Udzungwa Mountains and shows how little we know about these biodiversity hotspots''.
Details of Rovero's discovery were published in the latest edition of the Journal of Zoology.
