Fig 1.
Description of endemic species and subspecies of birds, mammals, and scorpions over time, and number of specimens of endemic birds and mammals.
The details of scorpion taxa described since the 1990s are presented in supporting information (S1 Case, S2 Table). Specimens and taxa are based on Noe4D (upper portion of top left graph) and GBIF (lower portion). Overall, the grand majority of specimens consists of killed specimens, with the non-killed specimens gaining momentum in the last two decades. Since the 1930s only a few new bird taxa have been described, while the description of mammals has surged since the mid-1990s with the description of new species of small mammals in the orders Afrosoricida and Rodentia, and the application of the Phylogenetic Species Concept and new molecular tools to the systematics of lemurs [24,25]. Since the 1990s, thousands of birds and mammals have been removed from the wild to document the diversity of these two groups in Madagascar. Despite increasing efforts to document the other endemic vertebrates since the 1990s the only class for which we have a good taxonomic knowledge in Madagascar, and have done for over 50 years, is the birds. In total, there have been 92 endemic taxa (species and subspecies) of scorpions, 176 endemic taxa of birds and 219 endemic taxa of mammals described by the end of 2016.
Table 1.
Specimens of endemic mammals and birds documented in Noe4D and number of endemic species and subspecies described for decades starting in 1920.
(Color code as in Fig 1; darker color for specimens with killed animals; lighter color for specimens without killed animals; number of taxa for species and subspecies recognized today in non colored lines in the form of ‘number of taxa with type material based on killed animals’ / ‘number of taxa with type material excluding killed animals’–excluding the taxa described and put in synonymy).
Table 2.
Recent lemur taxa described without killing or removing animals from the wild into captivity.
Fig 2.
Data and information processing from field, museum and publication [e.g., 32,39,42,61,63–95]; information is collected and collated in the Noe4D database.
The red boxes represent an actual case study from a specimen killed in the field on 25 February 1865, and an ear clip saved as a specimen in October 2000, both housed in the Museum of Leiden, NL, and further designated as the holotype of a new species described [32]. The yellow box is a case study from a grebe (Tachybaptus sp.) killed during the MZFAA on 7 June 1929, field number 246, accessed in the MNHN and becoming the holotype of a new species described in 1932 [95]. (Grey animals represent wildlife, colored animals represent killed and non-killed specimens with color code as in Fig 1)