WingedCat
03-11-2006, 03:05 PM
From the strange and amazing Worm Hole files
Last year, in central Laos, Western scientists thought they had found a new species of mammal after seeing a strange carcass at a market near the Mekong River.
This discovery represented a new rodent family, which was named Laonastes aenigmamus meaning the Laotian "rock rat. This was the first new mammal family announced in 30 years.
This new species, it turns out, wasn't so new at all. Laonastes aenigmamus is actually a modern member of an ancient rodent family last seen as an 11-million-year-old fossil paleobiologists call Diatomys shantungensis.
The full story (with picture) is available here:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/rock-rat-back-from-extinction/2006/03/11/1141701733549.html
Last year, in central Laos, Western scientists thought they had found a new species of mammal after seeing a strange carcass at a market near the Mekong River.
This discovery represented a new rodent family, which was named Laonastes aenigmamus meaning the Laotian "rock rat. This was the first new mammal family announced in 30 years.
This new species, it turns out, wasn't so new at all. Laonastes aenigmamus is actually a modern member of an ancient rodent family last seen as an 11-million-year-old fossil paleobiologists call Diatomys shantungensis.
The full story (with picture) is available here:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/rock-rat-back-from-extinction/2006/03/11/1141701733549.html