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Evidence of a third new mammal comes from the work of Vietnamese biologist Nguyen Ngoc Chinh, who went to Pu Mat, north of Vu Quang, to look for the Vu Quang ox. He returned with the skull of an animal the local hunters call quang khem, or slow-running deer, and scientists have taken to calling Chinh's deer. It is too early to say whether this is also a new species, but Arctander has so far been unable to match its DNA with that of known varieties of deer...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ancient Creatures in a Lost World | 6/20/1994 | See Source »

Nonetheless, the Vu Quang ox, giant muntjac and slow-running deer might have come to the attention of the world much sooner had Vietnam and Laos not been isolated by wars and trade embargoes. For many years, local hunters and even Laotian forest officials have used antlers taken from the animals as hat racks or as parts of ceremonial altars, unaware that these trophies represented species new to science. Indeed, MacKinnon found among the unsorted bones in the collection of Hanoi's Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources some skulls of the slow-running deer that had been gathering dust...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ancient Creatures in a Lost World | 6/20/1994 | See Source »

...common feature of the three newly discovered animals is their primitive characteristics, suggesting that they have remained essentially unchanged for aeons. The slow-running deer has simple horns that remind Arctander of a Viking helmet. The giant muntjac has large canine teeth that deerlike animals used in fights long ago, before they evolved elaborate antlers. All three animals have braincases that are relatively small in proportion to their size. Taxonomist Groves says the Vu Quang ox seems somewhat similar to the hemibos, an extinct creature that lived in India 5 million years...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ancient Creatures in a Lost World | 6/20/1994 | See Source »

...fluctuations in climate," Arctander explains, "relic species can survive for a very long time." Both Arctander and Groves say that given the diversity of the area, and its ability to support many large herbivores such as the newly discovered species as well as elephants, cattle-like gaur, sambar deer and forest hogs, the region may have served as a refuge through the ages, even as climate fluctuated elsewhere in Southeast Asia...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ancient Creatures in a Lost World | 6/20/1994 | See Source »

...snares indiscriminately kill anything they trap, including endangered animals such as the tiger and sun bear. Human pressures have reduced the elephant population to as few as five animals, and the same fate could befall the species just uncovered. MacKinnon, disturbed by the connotations of the name slow-running deer, is worried that this animal may become extinct even before it is scientifically described...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ancient Creatures in a Lost World | 6/20/1994 | See Source »

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