{"id":520742,"date":"2026-03-13T07:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T07:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/520742\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T07:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T07:33:12","slug":"they-set-up-cameras-in-a-remote-mountain-range-and-found-the-worlds-rarest-rabbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/520742\/","title":{"rendered":"They Set Up Cameras In A Remote Mountain Range And Found The World’s Rarest Rabbit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, several environmental groups took on an enormous conservation project in the Annamite Mountains, a dense range in Southeastern Asia often called the \u201cAmazon of Asia\u201d for its varied wildlife. The charity leading the effort, Fauna & Flora<\/a>, placed trail cameras throughout the 680-mile range to learn about the wildlife living there.<\/p>\n

After months of gathering footage, the remarkable images<\/a> were released in February.<\/p>\n

Conservationists were shocked \u2014 and delighted \u2014 by the results.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The images] confirmed for us the biodiverse richness of these sites,\u201d Gareth Goldthorpe, Fauna & Flora\u2019s senior technical advisor for the Asia-Pacific region, told The Dodo. \u201cThey confirmed the presence of some quite interesting species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those species caught on camera was the Annamite striped rabbit. This animal was unknown to scientists and the wider world until the mid-90s, and quite possibly the world\u2019s rarest bun.<\/p>\n

\"AFauna & Flora<\/p>\n

Annamite striped rabbits are small, with brown fur, black stripes and white bellies. They are nocturnal and so rarely seen that any photographic evidence of one is a huge deal.<\/p>\n

Nearly identical in appearance to Sumatran striped rabbits, often said to be the rarest rabbits on Earth, Annamite striped rabbits are a separate species, but no less elusive \u2014 or adorable.<\/p>\n

\"AOne of the few images scientists have of an Annamite striped rabbit. | Wikimedia Commons\/Jokuyken15<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature<\/a> (IUCN), Annamite striped rabbits are endangered<\/a>, and their population is dwindling, thanks in large part to poachers and the exotic wildlife trade.<\/p>\n

They also live in lowland areas, where a lot of development is taking place.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty much all of these protected areas have communities living around them,\u201d Goldthorpe said, \u201cand some even within them \u2026 Where there’s a lot of people, there’s not a lot of other species.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LushPhong Nha Ke Bang National Park near the Annamite Mountains in Vietnam. | mihtiander\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

But Goldthorpe remained hopeful, especially after seeing the trail camera images, because they gave conservationists evidence to act on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also need to be working with the communities,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to be supporting their livelihoods to try and reduce any future impacts they may have on these more densely occupied species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Species like the serow, known as the \u201cphantom of the forest\u201d because they’re so rarely seen, was also captured by the trail cams.<\/p>\n

\"AFauna & Flora<\/p>\n

Picture an antelope\u2019s body with a goat\u2019s head (including the horns) and a tufted mane of hair similar to a warthog. That\u2019s a serow. They forage in rocky areas in small groups, and the IUCN classifies them as a vulnerable species.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Serows are] there in very small numbers,\u201d Goldthorpe said. \u201cWe only found it, I believe, in one site.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Annamite striped rabbits, spotting a serow at all is considered a win \u2014 not to mention the Asian elephants, Sunda pangolins and stump-tailed macaques who showed up on film.<\/p>\n

\"AA baby stump-tailed macaque with her mother. | Fauna & Flora<\/p>\n

Sadly, since completing their trail cam research in 2025, Fauna & Flora lost funding for this particular project after the UK government made budget cuts.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean conservationists like Goldthorpe have given up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s still hope,\u201d Goldthorpe said. \u201cThere’s plenty of species out there, plenty of reasons to pull those resources into protecting them.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you would like to support Fauna & Flora\u2019s conservation efforts, you can donate to their work via their website<\/a>.\"Rare<\/a>Rare Family Caught On Camera For First Time Leaves Conservationists BreathlessThat many babies is unheard of.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, several environmental groups took on an enormous conservation project in the Annamite Mountains, a dense range…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[235015,3995,19232,616,2027,12841,34014,56852,614,79,235016,615,613,201,135148],"class_list":{"0":"post-520742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-annamite-striped-rabbit","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-conservation","11":"tag-daily-dodo","12":"tag-endangered-species","13":"tag-monkeys","14":"tag-rabbits","15":"tag-rare-species","16":"tag-sarah-ashley","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-serow","19":"tag-standard","20":"tag-the-dodo","21":"tag-wildlife","22":"tag-wildlife-trafficking"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}