Lonely hearts columns testify that finding a partner can be hard enough, but at least most human beings can be fairly certain that when we do we have got one of the right species. Things aren't so simple for all animals. Some Malagasy mouse lemurs are so similar that picking a mate of the right species, especially at night time in a tropical forest, might seem like a matter of pot luck. However, new research in BioMed Central's journal BMC Biology has shown that our desperately cute distant cousins use vocalisations to pick up a partner of the right species.
Until recently, grey, golden brown, and Goodman's mouse lemurs were all thought to be the same species. But genetic testing revealed that they are, in fact, three distinct, species so similar that they cannot be told apart by their appearance--so called cryptic species. "A fundamental problem for cryptic species that live in the same area and habitat is the coordination of reproduction and discrimination between potential mates of the same species and remarkably similar individuals of other species" say Pia Braune and colleagues from the Institute of Zoology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover University.
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