Species identity and cave-dwelling tree hyraxes of the Kenyan coast

The eastern tree hyrax is thought to be a solitarily living arboreal species of the forests of East Africa. However, on the coast of Kenya, indigenous forests have been almost entirely cleared, and some of the last tree hyrax populations live in limestone rocky formations and caves. Interestingly, they seem to be living in social groups. Here, we describe and document photographically these unique tree hyrax populations. We also describe their acoustical communication and their calling activity in three different habitats. Based on these animals’ physical appearance and acoustic analyses of their calls, they represent the species eastern tree hyrax, Dendrohyrax validus. Due to immence pressure from humans, the future of these small and isolated, cave-living tree hyrax populations does not seem bright., Study sites
We visited three tree hyrax habitats on the Kenya coast in Jan 26–Feb 1, 2022. The first study site, the Shimba Hills Natural Reserve, 4.214° S, 39.451° E, has a total area of 192.5 km. The reserve supports forests (Figure 2a) and grassland areas that are kept open by periodic burning. The local tree hyraxes live in trees. The second site, Vipingo, is on private land (coordinates not published). It represents a 25-ha patch of old indigenous forest with large baobab trees (Figure 2b), surrounded by agricultural lands and villages. The site also has three large sacred limestone caves with bat colonies. The local tree hyraxes live in caves and trees. The third site, Chasimba, 3.739° S, 39.693° E, represents a small (2 ha) rock outcrop with sacred caves and small indigenous trees (Figure 2c), surrounded by agricultural fields and banana groves. The local tree hyraxes live in rocky formations higher up. Unfortunately, the site has already lost most of its tree cover and is in imm..., This is a simple text file (txt), that can be opened on all computers.