Live Giant Elephant-Shrews Visiting Peabody Are Rare Presence In North American

NEW HAVEN — Bindi and Mkaya are two of the newest residents of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Although the museum is widely known for its famous fossils and other defunct specimens, these visitors are live. But what they do have in common with many of those specimens is their scarcity.

Bindi and Mkaya are black and rufous giant elephant-shrews on loan from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C. With fewer than 20 in all of North America, most people have never encountered one. The Peabody is one of only four North American venues where they can be found and the only one in the Northeast. Despite the “giant” modifier, they are more the size of a possum.

The year-old brothers are full of energy and can be seen zipping around their glassed-in pens during museum hours. At the 2 pm feeding time, visitors during the week of April 14–18 vacation, will be able to view their feeding by Peabody educator and animal specialist Jim Sirch.

The elephant-shrews are featured in the new exhibition “Travels in the Great Tree of Life” to demonstrate a surprising link. These tiny animals are closely related to the world’s largest land mammal, the elephant. Both are members of the mammal lineage Afrotheria that includes some 80 species so varied that in-depth DNA analysis proved only recently that they share a unique common ancestor.

Elephant-shrews were so named because their generously-sized olfactory organ resembles an elephant’s trunk. It turns out that the similarity is no coincidence. Elephant-shrews, in fact, are more closely related to elephants than to moles, rats, or even shrews.

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History is at 170 Whitney Avenue, and is open Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm, and on Sundays from noon to 5. Unless otherwise noted, admission to exhibits and programs is free with admission of $7 adults, $6 seniors, and $5 children 3–18. It is free for museum members, Yale ID holders, and children under age 3. On Thursdays from 2 to 5 pm it is free and open to all.

Visit Peabody.yale.edu or call the museum’s Infotape at 203-432-5050 for additional information.