The “Tamaron” of the Philippine Islands

Abstract

A LETTER, which I have just received from our Corresponding Member, the energetic traveller and naturalist, Prof. J. B. Steere, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A., announces that he has made a remarkable zoological discovery in the Philippine Islands. In the interior of the little-known Island of Mindoro he has procured specimens of a strange animal, which, although much talked of in the Philippines, is little, if at all, known elsewhere. This is the Tamaron of the natives, a wild species of the family Bovidæ, allied to the Anoa of Celebes, which Prof. Steere proposes to call Anoa mindorensis. Its general colour is black, the hairs being short and rather fine. A greyish white stripe runs from near the inner corner of the eye towards the base of the horn. There is also a greyish white spot above the hoof on all the feet, and a greyish white patch on the inside of the lower fore-leg. The height of the male at the shoulder is about 3 feet 6 inches, the length from the nose to the base of the tail about 6 feet 8 inches. The horns are about 14 inches long. Prof. Steere obtained two males and one female of this animal, of which his full description will be read at the first meeting of the next session of the Zoological Society. The discovery is of much interest, as giving an additional instance of the similarity between the faunas of Celebes and the Philippines, which was already evident from other well-known cases of parallelism between the natural products of these two countries.