Credit: EC SFNC

As wildlife photographs go, it will not win any prizes for artistry, but as a wildlife self-portrait it is unique. This is the first picture of a wild saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensi, also known as the Vu Quang bovid), a creature which caused a stir five years ago as the first large land vertebrate to be discovered for over 50 years (V. V. Dung et al. Nature 363, 443-445; 1993).

The saola was originally described from skulls, teeth and skins alone, the hunting trophies of local inhabitants collected by a survey team working in the mountainous forests along the Vietnam-Laos border. The form of the adult animal was pieced together from fragments of 20 specimens, from which it was surmised that saolas weigh about 100 kg, and stand one metre tall.

As the artist's reconstruction by Karen Phillipps shows, the saola is an unusual antelope. Its long, straight horns and coloration make it difficult to group with other species, but based on anatomical and DNA evidence it was assigned to a new genus in the bovine group containing the oxen and the eland. Since then, however, a study based on skull form and dentition has sought to place it with the goats (H. Thomas, Mammalia 58, 453-481; 1994).

Scientific eyes have still to gaze upon a live, wild saola in the flesh. This picture was taken when an obliging animal triggered a camera trap laid by a team led by Mike Baltzer of Flora and Fauna International, which is surveying the forest as part of an EU-funded project to halt its degradation and destruction. Based on rough calculations of the amount of habitat needed to support an animal of this size, it is thought that probably only a few hundred saola survive in the region. Under attack as it is from hunters and shrinking forests, this odd, elusive creature may well become extinct before any researcher sees one or learns its habits.