Photos of Mystery Mammal Sought

Scientists on the trail of a newly discovered large mammal living in remote forests of Vietnam plan to set up automatic cameras to try to photograph it.

Dr. John Mckinnon, a World Wide Fund for Nature scientist who found traces of the creature during an expedition to the isolated Vu Quang nature reserve, said Friday that up to six cameras would be in place by the end of the year.

Local hunters would also be asked not to eat all the animals they killed.

So far Mckinnon has found three sets of upper skull and horns in the reserve, which he described as being like a “lost world cut off from the rest of Indo-China.”

Traces of skin and hair were being sent to the United States for DNA genetic tests.

Mckinnon said the discovery of a new large mammal was an extremely rare event. Only a handful had been found in the last hundred years.

The new mammal’s horns measured 18 inches long and the creature probably stood about half the height of a human. It probably resembled the Anoa, a dwarf buffalo found in Indonesia.

Local people described the animal as a forest goat and used it as a source of food and medicine.