Long-lost "Furby" Primate Discovered

Scientists have found a wide-eyed primate that fits snugly in one hand in the first live sighting in more than 80 years of a creature that some thought was extinct.

Over a two-month period, scientists working in Lore Lindu National Park on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi caught and released three pygmy tarsiers. They bear a striking resemblance to the Furby, an electronic toy popular in the late 1990s.

The species had not been observed alive in more than eight decades, since they were collected for a museum in 1921. Many scientists had believed them to be extinct until eight years ago, when two scientists trapping rats in Sulawesi accidentally trapped and killed one.

The pygmy tarsier, or Tarsius pumilus, weighs about 1.7 ounces, and has dense fur, large, protruding eyes. In addition to seeming as a living, breathing version of the Furby, it also appears as though it ought to have had appeared in the 1984 movie "Gremlins."

The scientists noted that attaching a radio collar was not easy, as the animal can swivel its head around 180 degrees.

Original article here.