The flagship species concept appears to have become popular around the mid 1980s[6] within the debate on how to prioritise species for conservation. The first widely available references to use the flagship concept applied it to both neotropical primates[7] and African elephants and rhinos,[8] in the mammal-centric approach that still dominates how the concept is used.[4][5][11] The use of flagship species has been dominated by large bodied animals,[7] especially mammals,[11] although members of other taxonomic groups have occasionally been used.[13]