A Reuters article said scientists have rediscovered pygmy tarsier in Sulawei Island, Indonesia. Rediscovered? A lot of Filipinos violently reacted and commented on Yahoo! News, including myself. There’s a lot of tarsiers in the Island of Bohol, Philippines. Anybody claiming tarsiers were extinct is out of his mind.

However, we were wrong. The tarsier specie that was found was a totally different one from our Philippine Tarsier. Pygmy tarsier has a scientific name Tarsius pumilus while Philippine tarsier is Tarsier pumilus. Pygmy tarsier is a little smaller than our own Philippine tarsier. In fact, these are just two of the eight species of tarsiers in the world.

Pygmy Tarsier (Photo from Yahoo! News)

Philippine Tarsier photo credit: ericlucky290

Pygmy tarsier was thought to be extinct since the last time a pygmy tarsier was found alive was in 1921 until a group of Indonesian scientists accidentally trapped and killed one in 2000. Lat August 2008 a group of researchers caught two males and one female tarsier in Sulawesi, Indonesia dispelling the belief that pygmy tarsiers were already extinct.

All the reactions, positive or otherwise, are also beneficial for Bohol, Philippines. Most commenters at Yahoo! Buzz  provided a link to Bohol tarsier. As can be expected, a lot of people will be curious about Bohol and traffick to the site will increase.

Let’s just hope a lot of them will also visit the Philippines to see a live Philippine tarsier.