A new species of mammal has been discovered in the mountains of Tanzania, scientists report. Africans call them sengi, Europeans call them elephant shrews because they resemble giant shrews with long trunk-like flexible snouts.
Surprisingly, they were right in a proportion of 50%: DNA has revealed that they are indeed related to elephants, and not to actual shrews, which are related to hedgehogs and moles. They are considered living fossils, restricted to Africa, that have remained unchanged for 35 million years.
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