Mammals

Morphological, molecular, fossil and biogeographical data bearing on early primate evolution suggest that the clade containing extant (or 'crown') strepsirrhine primates (lemurs, lorises and galagos) arose in Afro-Arabia during the early palaeogene. Galagos are confined to Sub-Saharan African in almost all wooded habitats. Four genera and 20 species are currently recognised with at least four species yet to be named. The smallest or dwarf galagos (> 200g body weight) from the genus Galagoides comprise of seven species, all of which are primarily forest dwelling species. The Rondo galago was fully described as a species in 1996 but, it was discovered in the 1950s when tiny galagos were collected from the Rondo and Makonde plateaux by the medical researcher R.W. Hayman, and were deposited in the Natural History Museum, London. They were then variously identified as Demidoff’s galago “Galago demidovii” known from the Congo basin and later the Mountain galago “Galago demidovii orinus” (Jenkins 1987) known from the East Arc Mountains of Tanzania and Kenya. Unusually the Rondo galago occurs together with other (larger) dwarf galago Galagoides species these are the Zanzibar galago (Galagoides zanzibaricus) and Grant’s galago (G. granti) depending on the locality. It is hypothesised that the Rondo galago may have evolved out of an ancestral dwarf galago that occurred in the region at a time when the Congolean forest belt extended right across to East Africa in wetter times. The Rondo galago may thus represent a derived and isolated form from an old galago lineage.

Bushbabies are prosimian primates that are small, long-tailed with large mobile ears and large eyes. Bushbabies possess a grooming claw and a tooth comb and a pseudo-tongue. G. rondoensis is one of the smallest of all galago species. The Rondo galago is extraordinary for its bottle brush tail which is reddish when immature and darkens with maturity, reproductive anatomy, and its distinctive “double unit rolling call”.

This species is known from eight isolated forest patches: Zaraninge Forest within Sadaani National Park, Pande Game Reserve, Pugu/Kazimzumbwe, Rondo, Litipo, Chitoa, Ruawa and Ziwani Forest Reserves at elevations between 50 – 900 m a.s.l.. The known distribution encompasses 92 km² of coastal forest. These eight subpopulations cluster into two broad populations some 400km apart from each other, one in southwest Tanzania near the coastal towns of Lindi and Mtwara, the other approximately 400 km further north, bisected by the Rufiji River, in pockets of forest around Dar es Salaam and one 100 km further north in Sadaani National Park.