De Winton’s golden mole has been lost to science for more than 80 years. Now a team may have found it

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He is tracking the smell of a golden mole, and his team, the nonprofit organization Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), eagerly watches him every move.

Approximately the size of a hamster or mouse, golden polka dots are small underground mammals. The name comes from the iridescent luster of the layer, which gives them a golden, metallic look and helps them glide under the sand dunes. They live almost exclusively underground, they are completely blind.

All this makes the golden mole very difficult to find. But even harder to spot is De Winton’s golden mole, a species lost to science for more than 84 years, and the target of research in South Africa.

The team uses a variety of detection techniques, from dog odor detection to DNA analysis. Because De Winton’s golden mole looks like other mole species, DNA is the only way to confirm its rediscovery.

“De Winton’s was last found in 1936,” says JP Le Roux, one of the EWT field officers working on the research. “You only find traces that were there and when you manage to find one and in catches externally, you can’t really distinguish other species.”

Samantha Mynhardt, a researcher at the University of Pretoria, is analyzing the environmental DNA of the species, such as hair or skin cells that it has released into the environment over time.

Samantha Mynhardt collects environmental DNA for analysis in the lab (Courtesy of Nicky Souness)

“Our approach is to look for these golden mole burrows to collect the soil from the burrows and then extract the DNA from the soil,” he says. “We are able to amplify specific genes that we can use for species identification.”

Mynhardt says he is currently completing this process with samples collected during the team’s second expedition to Port Nolloth, a city on the northwest coast of South Africa. From these samples, the team says they hope to find evidence of De Winton’s golden mole, or potentially an entirely new species of golden mole.

“We have collected 100 soil samples from this area in the region and are now busy in the lab analyzing them, preparing them for sequencing,” he says, adding that they hope to have the results “very soon”.

The search for lost species

De Winton’s golden mole is just one of many species lost to science.

For the golden mole project, EWT partnered with the Re: Wild conservation group, which collaborates each year with the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) to compile a list of lost species.

“Our current list of lost species is over 2,000 and covers the full range of flora, fauna and fungi around the world,” says Barney Long, senior director of conservation strategies at Re: wild.

These animals became extinct in the wild. The scientists brought them back

From this list, 25 species, including De Winton’s golden mole, have been selected as “the 25 most sought after.” Long says some of the species on the list are being actively sought, while others are being planned and a few people are waiting for funding. Some expeditions have been delayed due to the pandemic, he adds.

“The top 25 is really a representative sample that has a mix of interesting species and interesting stories,” Long says. “There are species where we think they will be found and there are species there that are very long.”

So far, eight of the most sought-after species have been found, including Wallace’s giant bee, Fernandina Galapagos turtle, and, more recently, Sierra Leone’s crab. To confirm this as rediscovered, Long claims that there must be an image of observation and DNA testing.

Of course, looking for lost, possibly extinct species raises ethical questions, Long says.

“The question is when you give up, when you decide there have been enough searches and that has actually gone out,” he says. “There’s no easy answer to that.”

The brink of extinction

Searching for endangered species is a huge task, but techniques are improving. Esther Matthew, a senior field officer in the golden mole project and in charge of Jessie, the odor detection dog, says she hopes to train Jessie to distinguish species in the field.

Jessie and her manipulator Esther Matthew look for traces of golden mole (Courtesy of Nicky Souness)

“So far, we’ve just encouraged my odor detection dog to show signs of golden polka dots and rewards for trails or anything that points to the activity of golden moles,” he says. “But the goal is to train the dog to distinguish between species, so we don’t necessarily have to collect soil samples of all the signs from all places.”

The hope is that this will make the search more efficient, which will speed up conservation. The team says they need to know where De Winton’s golden polka dots are before they can implement any kind of protection, because if they don’t know where they are, they don’t know where to focus.

“The area where it has been found has been heavily affected by mining over the last few decades,” says Mynhardt. “There is also a growing urban development around Port Nolloth that poses a significant threat to the species.”

Le Roux adds that finding De Winton’s golden mole can also help indicate the health of the wider environment.

On the west coast of South Africa, where there is no “big megafauna,” the golden mole would be at the top of the food chain, he says, and therefore has a profound influence on the surrounding ecosystem.

“It’s iconic,” Le Roux says. “It’s very important that we find him.”

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