Brazilian Porcupine Found in Endangered Habitat

The good news? A new species of porcupine has been discovered. The bad news? This breed lives in the North Eastern Atlantic forest in Brazil, which is one of the world's most threatened natural environments.

And this species of porcupine has a quirky nature: it lives in the trees. It has been given the scientific name Coendou speratus, which is a mix between the name the indigenous people gave it (coandru-mirim) and the Latin term "spertus." Antonio Rossando Mendes Pontes, the zoology professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco who lead the team that discovered the creature, told the Associate Press. "In Latin, 'speratus' means hope, because we hoave to hope for its future."

The special porcupines were found in a small patch of forest in the state of Pernambuco, but they share their living space with another, larger, species of porcupine, which also lives in the trees, up near the canopy of the forest. Because the larger porcupines' turf is the canopy, the coendou speratus spends its time in the mid-level of the forest, where it mostly eats seeds.

While predators like dogs or jungle cats feed on these newly discovered cute rodent, the worst threat to the species is from human beings. Perhaps, not surprisingly so. The Atlantic Forest is one of the most endangered habitats in the world, with almost 88% of the whole original forest habitat destroyed by human activity such as farming, livestock grazing, logging, or building.

Pontes has been researching the little-studied North Eastern region of the Atlantic Forest since 2000, and has an in-depth understanding of the threat humanity poses to the region, as well as the loss of biodiversity humans have caused and may still.

"We began by researching all the literature that describes the fauna of the region, going all the way back to the first colonizers five centuries ago, and found out that many of the animals they described are extinct," said Pontes. "Given the rate of destruction in this area, where 98 percent of the original Northeastern Atlantic Forest has already been destroyed, imagine how many species could have gone extinct before we even knew about them," he said.

Souce: Associated Press at SFGate