1. MAMMALMAP NEWSLETTER Volume 1 Issue 5
towards gathering the mammal distribution
records that can critically improve
conservation across Africa.
As we prepare ourselves for 2014 – the year
that will be our biggest and best to date – we
thought we’d look back at 2013, and remind
ourselves and all of you, just why we think
that MammalMAP is destined to be an
incredible conservation asset.
MammalMAP
Newsletter
December 2013
MAMMALMAP CHRISTMAS SPECIAL! IN THIS ISSUE
MammalMAP and Citizen Science Page 1
MammalMAPPER of the month Page 2
MammalMAP and Biologists Page 3
MammalMAP Data Summary Page 3
MammalMAP’s challenge for 2014 Page 5
It’s a MammalMAP Wrap for 2013
2013 has been a very productive and
successful year for MammalMAP. We’ve seen
MammalMAP develop extensively in every
aspect from the size of our team, to our
strategic improvements, to the reach of our
message, and – most importantly – to the
number and diversity of mammal records in
our database. Each day, with the help of all of
our data contributors and project sponsors,
we continue to work
MammalMAP and Citizen Science
Remember that you can also submit your
records through the traditional route (via our
all-important virtual mammal museum –
where all records land up), using the online
submission form on our blog or through via
email.
Each month we run a MammalMAPPPER of
the month campaign based on the number of
records submitted. A very BIG thank you goes
out to all our previous MammalMAPPERS
who fill our database with wonderful and
valuable photos. This includes our two
winners from July to October, Vaughan
Jessnitz and Megan Loftie-Eaton (pictured
right), as well as Pieter Cronje, Aron White,
John Power, Jeremy Bolton, Allison Sharp,
Warren McCleland, Gary Bennets, Colin
Jackson & co, Trevor Hardaker, Elsa Bussiere
and Les Underhill. To stand a chance to be
featured as our top MammalMAPPER, you’d
better get those pictures rolling in!
Congratulations to this month’s top
contributor, Darren Pietersen, featured on the
next page!
You have no doubt already noticed that at
MammalMAP, we love citizen scientists. We
believe that involving the public in the
collection of mammal distribution records
serves not only to significantly expand the
database of information, but it provides a
mechanism for educating the public about
the challenges facing biodiversity. So we’ve
been using multiple media to raise awareness
about MammalMAP and to encourage the
public to help gather information about
mammal distributions. And the public has
responded!
At the beginning of 2013 the MammalMAP
database had 5,715 citizen scientist
contributions. Currently, the number of
records contributed by citizen scientists has
nearly tripled with MammalMAP now housing
14,165 citizen science records.
It hasn’t slipped our attention that the public
likes to get their records to us in the easiest
ways possible – and who can blame them! So
we continue to be incredibly grateful to our
partners who produce the Smart Phone apps
(like Africa: LIVE) that keeps the public
MammalMAPPING.
Number of records submitted by Our BIG
FIVE MammalMAPPERS of the month
Darren Pietersen (84)
Nick Hart (74)
Megan Loftie-Eaton, Jason
Boyce & Andre Coetzer (57)
Jeremy Bolton (31)
David Everard (29)
Vaughan Jessnitz Megan Loftie-Eaton
(3-times MammalMAP
champion!)

2. MAMMALMAP NEWSLETTER | Issue 5 2
About Darren Pietersen
A Pangolin (Manis temminckii)
Photograph by Darren Pietersen
A few question for Darren, our top
MammalMAPPER
How did you find out about MammalMAP?
“I’ve always been involved with the various
ADU projects, so I was notified of
MammalMAP through one of the ADU
newsletters. The launch of the project was
also circulated through our department, and
Tali gave a presentation on MammalMAP to
our department at the University of Pretoria.
So all in all I heard about the project through
a variety of avenues.”
Where did your passion for animals come
from?
“I was incredibly fortunate in that I grew up in
protected areas and was exposed to
conservation from as early as I can
remember. This early interest was reinforced
over the years until I eventually became a
researcher. There is still so much that we
don’t know and don’t understand about
mammals and so much to learn – you can
never get bored! “
What’s your favourite mammal?
“It’s always difficult to choose a single
species as your ‘favourite’ species, as each
species has its own uniqueness, quirkiness
and character. Having said that I’m definitely
biased towards pangolins! I have had the
privilege of studying pangolins for
the past four years and have gained
some unique and amazing insights
into their behaviour. It’s been
absolutely amazing to work with
pangolins, and I don’t think that any
other species will now be able to
replace them as my favourite
mammal. “
Why do you think MammalMAP is
important?
“MammalMAP is incredibly
important from a conservation point of few,
amongst various others. Researchers
generally have limited finances and time and
generally cannot spend all their time out in
the field searching for their study animals
(even though they would love to!). And even
if they had unlimited time and finances, you
aren’t guaranteed of finding the species that
you are looking for! Some of the rarer and
cryptic species are purely seen by chance,
and if it wasn’t for citizen scientists who are
there to record these sightings, we would
probably never hear about them.
To take pangolins as an example, we have
been studying the past and current
distribution of pangolins to monitor changes
in their ranges. I thus have first-hand
experience of how important each and every
distribution record is, and how difficult it can
be to get these records! A project like
MammalMAP effectively increases the
number of ‘scientists’ that are out and about
collecting data, which greatly assists both
research and conservation efforts.
MammalMAP will also ensure that we have
updated distribution data for the South
African Red List Assessment that is currently
being revised.”
Do you have any tips for potential
MammalMAPPERS out there?
“The most important thing is to GET OUT
THERE! The beauty of MammalMAP is that
you don’t have to be a professional
photographer to participate. You just need a
camera! And a quick trigger-finger. Lighting
and composition don’t count as much as just
getting a shot of the animal. I’ve taken a
photo of a Common Duiker’s backside as it
disappeared into a bush – photographically a
rubbish shot, but the species could be
identified, which is the important part.
Wildlife is everywhere – from your back yard
and suburb to our larger protected areas and
Africa as a whole. You don’t have to travel far
to contribute valuable information –
sometimes the most interesting records
come from urban areas. And most of all just
enjoy yourself, your surroundings and the
amazing animal diversity that we have.”
MammalMAPPER
of the month!
“I’m a PhD student at the University of Pretoria and chairman of the African Pangolin Working Group. My
research interests are varied and include reptiles and amphibians, pangolins and birds.
I love studying rare, inconspicuous and threatened species as these species are often in greatest need of
our attention and yet usually don’t receive nearly as much attention as the more charismatic species do. I
love travelling and whenever I can I head off into the ‘wilds’ of Africa, especially Mozambique and
Zambia.
And I’m thrilled that we have finally deposed Vaughan Jessnitz as MammalMAPPER of the month! ;-)
(Even if it is just for one month...)”

3. MAMMALMAP NEWSLETTER | Issue 5 3
MammalMAP
and Biologists
Many biologists working across Africa are
gathering information about where mammal
species occur today. By collaborating with
these biologists our objective at
MammalMAP is to consolidate all of this
disparately stored information into one
digital database.
To achieve this we network widely with
scientists, conservation professionals and
wildlife authorities across Africa by attending
scientific conferences, participating in global
conservation meetings and contacting
biologists everywhere via email.
MammalMAP and the South
African Red List for Mammals
One of the most crucial partnerships that
MammalMAP formed this year is with the
Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and the
South African National Biodiversity Institute
(SANBI). Our three organisations teamed up
to revise and update the Red List for South
African mammals. This list revision will
enable conservationists to determine exactly
how threatened each species is and the
potential solutions needed to save them.
Most lists are usually pretty boring (think to-
do lists, shopping lists, wedding attendance
lists…) but the Red List is a dynamic measure
of extinction risk that generates the
knowledge which every politician, NGO-
worker, landowner and schoolchild needs to
make better conservation decisions.
It’s going to take us several more months to
complete this Red List process, as we’re still
consolidating the mammal distribution
information we need to make the revisions.
But we are delighted that this consolidation
process has already led to an explosion of
mammal distribution records into
MammalMAP.
So far more than 132,000 mammal
distribution records have been consolidated
into MammalMAP through the Red List
revision process, and we’re expecting to
receive thousands more Red List records in
the coming months. Please keep yours
coming too!
The key ingredient for MammalMAP’s
success is simple: DATA. We need as much
information as we can get about the 21
st
Century whereabouts of all African mammal
species. Here’s how we’re doing so far:
Geographic spread of the data
During 2013 MammalMAP has expanded its
reach to 26 African countries, although the
bulk of the data in MammalMAP (90%) falls
within South Africa (see Figure 1). At this
relatively early stage of data collection and
consolidation the patterns that are reflected
in the MammalMAP dataset are primarily
linked with the distribution of willing data
contributors and/or their study areas, and
cannot yet be considered representative of
actual mammal distribution patterns.
Mapping mammals beyond
southern and eastern Africa
While the geographic spread of the
MammalMAP dataset is expanding, it’s clear
that we have a considerable way to go to get
an even distribution of records across the
African continent. We expect that these
distribution patterns will even out somewhat
as we begin to bring in data from biologists
working beyond South African borders
(we’ve been focussing heavily on South
African researchers because of the revision of
the South African mammal Red List that is
currently underway). However, we also
recognise that it will always be easier for us
to get mammal distribution records from
African countries that have good
technological infrastructure (particularly
cellular and internet capacities). Getting data
from African countries that have limited
technological infrastructure is one of our
greatest challenges!
MammalMAP
Data Summary
Figure 1: The number of records contributed for each African country by biologists and
citizen scientists combined.

4. MAMMALMAP NEWSLETTER | Issue 5 4
Figure 3: Pie charts indicating the relative percentage of records contributed for each mammal species by biologists and citizen
scientists. Only species that constituted >1% of the dataset are represented in the charts. The number of records contributed for
each African country by biologists and citizen scientists combined.
Mapping mammals beyond
protected areas
A pattern we’re becoming increasingly aware
of is that the vast majority of distribution
records contributed by citizen scientists
(89.4%) are for mammals ranging within
protected areas – specifically the Kruger
National Park (70.5%), Hluhluwe-Imfolozi
Game Reserve (12.7%) and Pilanesberg
Provincial Nature Reserve (11.1%) in South
Africa.
While we recognise that every mammal
distribution record is important, the records
that are the most valuable for conservation
are those for mammals outside of protected
areas. It’s the records from unprotected areas
that are most meaningful when it comes to
assessing species extinction risks, and to
guiding land development policies.
Taxonomic spread of the data
The MammalMAP dataset covers all but one
(Sirenia) of the mammal orders found in
Africa (see Figure 2). However, the
taxonomic spread of these data is skewed
towards large mammals, with small
mammals and marine mammals heavily
underrepresented. This pattern is consistent
for data contributed by biologists and citizen
scientists, although the citizen science data is
more extreme in this regard. We expect that
in time – as more records are consolidated –
this taxonomic spread will even out
somewhat.
Differences between data contributed by
biologists and data contributed by citizen
scientists are even clearer at the species level
(see Figure 3).
Citizen scientists tend to focus heavily on the
mammals that are large, charismatic or
diurnal (or in some cases, all three).
Encouraging citizen scientists to collect and
submit data for less charismatic, nocturnal,
marine and/or small mammal species will be
crucial to increasing their value to
MammalMAP.
The focus of the biologist’s data is less clear,
but this graph is strongly affected by which
biologists have submitted data to our
dataset. For example, we’ve received a lot of
data from biologists who’ve studied primates
during their careers (like the MammalMAP
project manager - Tali!) and others studying
antelopes, but comparatively less data for
biologists studying any other species. In
time, as more data come in, the biologist’s
graph should either tend towards being more
taxonomically representative, or should
begin to accurately reflect real discrepancies
in which species are studied across Africa.
Figure 2: The percentage of records per mammal order as contributed by biologists (blue bars) and
citizen scientists (red bars).
0% 20% 40% 60%
SIRENIA (dugongs and manatees)
CETACEA (whales, dolphins, and porpoises)
TUBULIDENTATA (Aardvarks)
PHOLIDOTA (Pangolins)
HYRACOIDEA (Tree and Rock Hyraxes)
MACROSCELIDEA (Sengis)
LAGOMORPHA (Hares and Rabbits)
PROBOSCIDEA (Elephants)
AFROSORICIDA (Golden Moles and Tenrecs)
PERISSODACTYLA (Odd toed ungulates: Zebras and Rhinos)
EULIPOTYPHLA (Hedgehogs and Shrews)
CARNIVORA (All the meat-eaters!)
CHIROPTERA (Bats)
RODENTIA (Rats, Gerbils, Squirrels, Voles and Mice)
PRIMATES (Apes and Monkeys)
ARTIODACTYLA (Even-toed ungulates: e.g., Antelopes,…
Biologists
Citizen scientists

5. MAMMALMAP NEWSLETTER | Issue 5 5
Technology
The slowest aspect of MammalMAP’s
development in 2013 has been its
technology, with many of our systems not
functioning at the level that we are aspiring
to. But this is set to change dramatically
during 2014 as new funding is allowing us to
increase our staff capacity (sorely strained
currently) and upgrade our systems and
equipment.
Over the course of next year we will be
redesigning the MammalMAP website to
make it much easier to get your records into
MammalMAP, and much easier to share
MammalMAP records with the people who
can influence conservation policy across
Africa.
Data collection protocols
One of the things most greatly
compromising the usefulness of the
MammalMAP dataset is that we currently
have no standardised data collection
protocols. This makes it impossible to
determine (and control for) data collection
effort, and greatly limits our ability to detect
seasonal, annual or regional patterns in the
dataset.
To try to improve on this, during 2014 we will
be working more closely with the end-users
of MammalMAP data to develop data
collection protocols and ensure that
MammalMAP data is of adequate quality and
quantity to inform conservation policy and
management plans.
Conservation education
Because mammals present a widely
accessible subject matter for the public,
MammalMAP has great potential to
contribute to conservation education. This
year we’ve strived to do this at a very basic
level using the media, social media and
public talks. We’ve also teamed up with the
Encyclopaedia of Life (EOL), and are
exploring ways of using their platform to
increase our education outputs.
However, we lack the human and capital
resources to tackle conservation education
properly. In the coming years we aim to link
MammalMAP up with education
organisations/NGO’s who can expand
MammalMAP’s use in Africa’s education
sectors.
With 2013 barely finished, 2014 is already
looming large for MammalMAP! In addition
to all of our usual MammalMAP activities, we
have our minds set to some very important
jobs.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT US:
E-mail: mammalmap@gmail.com
Blog: mammalmap.blog.com
Postal address:
Lab 3.20 John Day Building
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Cape Town
Rondebosch 7700
South Africa
MammalMAP’s
Challenges for
2014
We are hugely grateful to all of our generous sponsors and project supporters