The northern treeshrew (''Tupaia belangeri'') is a

treeshrew The treeshrews (or tree shrews or banxrings) are small mammals native to the tropical forests of South and Southeast Asia. They make up the entire order Scandentia, which split into two families: the Tupaiidae (19 species, "ordinary" treeshrew ...

species native to

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

. In 1841, the German zoologist

Johann Andreas Wagner Johann Andreas Wagner (21 March 1797 – 17 December 1861) was a German palaeontologist, zoologist and archaeologist who wrote several important works on palaeontology. Career Wagner was a professor at the University of Munich, and curator ...

first used the specific name ''Cladobates belangeri'' for treeshrews that had been collected in

Pegu Bago (formerly spelt Pegu; , ), formerly known as Hanthawaddy, is a city and the capital of the Bago Region in Myanmar. It is located north-east of Yangon. Etymology The Burmese name Bago (ပဲခူး) is likely derived from the Mon langua ...

during a French expedition to Southeast Asia. These specimens were described by

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (16 December 1805 – 10 November 1861) was a French zoology, zoologist and an authority on deviation from normal structure. In 1854 he coined the term ''éthologie'' (ethology). Biography He was born in Paris ...

in 1834 in whose opinion they did not differ sufficiently from '' Tupaia tana'' to assign a specific rank.

Characteristics

Tupaia belangeri Skull Planckendael 06112015 2

Results of a

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', "remote", an ...

study involving northern treeshrews showed that their body temperature varies from during the night to during the day. This difference is larger than in other

endotherms An endotherm (from Greek ἔνδον ''endon'' "within" and θέρμη ''thermē'' "heat") is an organism that maintains its body at a metabolically favorable temperature, largely by the use of heat released by its internal bodily functions inste ...

, and indicates that the circadian rhythms of body temperature and

locomotor activity Animal locomotion, in ethology, is any of a variety of methods that animals use to move from one place to another. Some modes of locomotion are (initially) self-propelled, e.g., running, swimming, jumping, flying, hopping, soaring and gliding. Th ...

are synchronized. Adults weigh . The maximum longevity of the northern treeshrew is 11 years.

Phylogeny

Complete

mitochondrial genome Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial ...

data support the hypothesis of a closer

phylogenetic relationship In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

of ''Tupaia'' to rabbits than to primates. This is however disputed by the more recent full genome sequencing data that places the species closer to primates (divergence ~90.9 million years ago) than to

lagomorph The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and the Ochotonidae (pikas). The name of the order is derived from the Ancient Greek ''lagos'' (λαγ� ...

s and

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...

s (~96.4 Million years ago).

In medical research

The northern treeshrew has attained growing interest for use as a medical model. In 2002, an article was published describing that its primary

hepatocytes A hepatocyte is a cell of the main parenchymal tissue of the liver. Hepatocytes make up 80% of the liver's mass. These cells are involved in: * Protein synthesis * Protein storage * Transformation of carbohydrates * Synthesis of cholesterol, ...

could be used as a model for studying the Hepatitis C virus, which is a major cause of chronic

hepatitis Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver tissue. Some people or animals with hepatitis have no symptoms, whereas others develop yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes ( jaundice), poor appetite, vomiting, tiredness, abdominal ...

worldwide. It was also used in studies on the development of photo reception, investigation of retinal cones, and refractive state and ocular component dimensions of the eye. Many studies have been conducted regarding eye structure, development, and vision using the northern treeshrew model because of the similarity to human eye structure and sight that is uncharacteristic of conventional small lab animals, such as

s.Shriver, J .G., Noback, C. R. (1967). "Color Vision in the Tree Shrew (Tupaia glis)". Folia Primatologia 6: 161−169.

References

External links

*View th
tree shrew genome
in

Ensembl Ensembl genome database project is a scientific project at the European Bioinformatics Institute, which provides a centralized resource for geneticists, molecular biologists and other researchers studying the genomes of our own species and other v ...

*
Data of the genome of ''Tupaia belangeri''
via

NCBI The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is part of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is approved and funded by the government of the United States. The ...

Data of the genome assembly of ''Tupaia belangeri'' (version ASM18137v1)
via

{{Authority control Treeshrews Mammals of Myanmar Mammals of Bhutan Mammals of India Mammals of Bangladesh Mammals of China Mammals of Cambodia Mammals of Laos Mammals of Vietnam Mammals of Thailand Mammals described in 1841 Taxa named by Johann Andreas Wagner