Thought extinct for 30 years, tiny ‘Mouse Deer' makes a miraculous comeback

Time of India

24-07-2025

There are innumerable stories of animals across the world that were once believed extinct but were suddenly rediscovered and found again. They are symbols of pure hope, reminding us that nature can be miraculous even in the face of human threats.
These also show that with dedication and the right methods, species thought to be lost forever may still be clinging to life in remote or unexplored corners of the world.
While these animals may be few and under constant threat, their reappearance is the result of the urgent conservation efforts to protect them and their habitats. One such case is the reappearance of a tiny animal that remained lost for approximately 30 years.
A lost species caught on camera after nearly 30 years
A rare and elusive animal thought to be lost to science for nearly three decades had been captured on film in a Vietnamese forest. The silver-backed chevrotain, also known as the two-tone mouse deer, was photographed for the first time in the wild using camera traps, which was an exciting rediscovery for conservationists.
An Nguyen, a scientist and expedition leader at Global Wildlife
'Conservation (GWC), shared the team's excitement in the study, 'We had no idea what to expect, so I was surprised and overjoyed when we checked the camera traps and saw photographs of a chevrotain with silver flanks.'
He added, 'Discovering that it is, indeed, still out there is the first step in ensuring we don't lose it again, and we're moving quickly now to figure out how best to protect it.'
What does this animal look like?
The silver-backed chevrotain is a tiny hoofed mammal, roughly the size of a rabbit. It has a distinctive appearance, with a russet-colored head and front legs, a silver-grey body and hind legs, and a white, grizzled rear end. Despite being small, it faces threats from predators like leopards and wild dogs, but the greatest danger comes from hunters using snares.
To locate the chevrotain, Nguyen and his team first gathered information from villagers and forest rangers who reported spotting the animal. Guided by these accounts, they set up camera traps in a lowland forest in southern Vietnam. Over five months, the cameras captured 275 photos, which were categorised into 72 independent events. Encouraged by these results, they installed 29 more cameras, producing nearly 1,900 additional photos and 208 more sightings.
While it is still unclear how many individual animals these photos represent, the findings were published in Nature Ecology and Evolution to reduce hunting snares, which threaten not only the chevrotain but also many other species in the Greater Annamites ecoregion. Andrew Tilker, also from GWC, said, 'Stopping snaring will not only protect the silver-backed chevrotain, but also numerous other species, including several mammals and birds that are only found in the Greater Annamites ecoregion and are threatened with extinction.
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Local communities are also of great help for such discoveries
Tilker emphasised, 'A key aspect to future surveys for lost species will be to work with local communities, as we did for the silver-backed chevrotain project, to help guide on-the-ground survey efforts. Incorporating this local ecological knowledge was critical for our work, and this strategy could prove successful for other species in other parts of the world.'