Pygmy Tarsir: Furby is Alive in the Wild

A Furby is a popular toy which was made by Tiger Electronics back in the 1990's. They were a hot holiday item in 1998 and look exactly like a creature that was once thought to be extinct. The Furby toy was popular because it had language abilities which started off in Furbish and grew to learn English.

Multiple pygmy tarsiers were tracked recently in the Summer of 2008 in the mountains of Indonesia. They were located at elevations over 6,000 feet or 1,800 meters. This made an expedition led by Sharon Gursky-Doyen from Texas A&M. very difficult.

In order to catch the species hundreds of mist nets were deployed. Once captured the creatures had radio collars attached. This allowed for them to be monitored for several weeks.

The main research driving the expedition has to do with the build of the pygmy tarsiers. They have claws on their hands. This is different than other types of tarsiers. It is more similar to certain primates.

What differs largely between Furby and the pygmy tarsier is the ability to vocalize and communicate. It is not yet known if the pygmy tarsier is able to communicate with each other. This is because the researchers did not observe any such vocal communications. What they did observe was one instance where the pygmy tarsier opened its mouth. It is possible it communicates at inaudible frequencies to the human ear. This could be tested if a live one was brought back to a lab.

What sparked the expedition and led to the finding of a live pygmy tarsier was that in 2000 someone found a dead one. The last time one had been seen was in the early 1900s. This led many experts to believe that they had died out.

This is not the case and they are living in a current national park. It remains unknown what kind of additional protections the park will receive but the mountains contain species that are yet to be fully understood. By studying these creatures scientists can learn more about evolution and the differences between species that leads them to adapt to their environment. Perhaps Furbys will again be popular this holiday season.