It's wonderful when my "forwarding express service" manages to connect
two like-minded persons... :) My forward about the discovery of a
"furry lobster" struck the bell, loudly, with one of the recipients,
who was delighted with the sighting, but who said we were a looong way
off knowing all there was to be known about new "symptoms", on earth,
in heaven, or under the calm waters, even when talking about critters
much larger than a microbe or even an insect... Within 48 hrs, she was
able to send back an equally exciting "discovery snippet" too bolster
up her statement :)
I wish I knew where to look for a picture of the crtitter...
From: R.P.
See, all sorts of new species get discovered. There have been a bunch
of new species of mammals found in Vietnam and Laos, now that the
area's recovering from the war's devastation and scientists can
get in there to look around.
R
WASHINGTON(AP) It has the face of a rat and the tail of a skinny
squirrel _ and scientists say this creature discovered living in
central Laos is pretty special: It's a species believed to have
been extinct for 11 million years.
The long-whiskered rodent made international headlines last spring
when biologists declared they'd discovered a brand new species,
nicknamed the Laotian rock rat.
It turns out the little guy isn't new after all, but a rare kind of
survivor: a member of a family until now known only from fossils.
Nor is it a rat. This species, called Diatomyidae, looks more like
small squirrels or tree shrews, said paleontologist Mary Dawson of
Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Dawson, with colleagues in France and China, report the creature's
new identity in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
The resemblance is "absolutely striking," Dawson said. As soon as
her team spotted reports about the rodent's discovery, "we thought,
'My goodness, this is not a new family. We've known it from the
fossil record.'"
They set out to prove that through meticulous comparisons between
the bones of today's specimens and fossils found in China and
elsewhere in Asia.
To reappear after 11 million years is more exciting than if the rodent
really had been a new species, said George Schaller, a naturalist
with the Wildlife Conservation Society, which unveiled the creature's
existence last year. Indeed, such reappearances are so rare that
paleontologists dub them "the Lazarus effect."
"It shows you it's well worth looking around in this world, still,
to see what's out there," Schaller said.
The nocturnal rodent lives in Laotian forests largely unexplored
by outsiders, because of the geographic remoteness and history of
political turmoil.
Schaller calls the area "an absolute wonderland," because biologists
who have ventured in have found unique animals, like a type of wild ox
called the saola, barking deer, and never-before-seen bats. Dawson
describes it as a prehistoric zoo, teeming with information about
past and present biodiversity.
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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