Posted on 03/09/2006 2:46:21 PM PST by new yorker 77
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.
All the attention to the ancient rodent will be "wonderful for conservation," Schaller said. "This way, Laos will be proud of that region for all these new animals, which will help conservation in that some of the forests, I hope, will be preserved."
Locals call the rodent kha-nyou. Scientists haven't yet a bagged a breathing one, only the bodies of those recently caught by hunters or for sale at meat markets, where researchers with the New York-based conservation society first spotted the creature.
Now the challenge is to trap some live ones, and calculate how many still exist to tell whether the species is endangered, Dawson said.
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DC2K you don't have to bother to ping the
Evil ones(EVOS) they read every word of every post
hoping to find something they understand.
Why is that important? Because the Designer chose a low-ratio finding technique -- smell, rather than a high-ratio finding technque such as the memory of crows (or hummingbirds, as another recent article reports), the squirrel plants many excellent nut trees.
And who benefits from this Design? The squirrel, indirectly, however an individual squirrel doesn't benefit, it takes a few generations of squirrels before a nut tree produces. Man benefits. Great design, design for man, design for a purpose.
Let's look again at the squirrel's tiny brain -- tiny, but bigger than the hummingbird's. The hummingbird has great memory for feeding flowers, the squirrel's memory for nuts is poor. If a chance mutation caused a squirrel to have excellent memory of nuts, why then he'd be able to spend more time propagating and fighting for territory. Squirrels are extremely territorial. With more nuts, the squirrel with excellent memory's powerful, sexy and well-fed descendents would overwhelm and replace non-excellent memory squirrels. Pure Darwinistic Evolution!
But that didn't happen. Instead we have design, and not only design, design that spans generations in planning and encompasses a web of life, not just one sperm bearing male and egg bearing female. Great design!
So then wouldn't everything in that niche have reamined the same …
I just want to thank you for an excellent post. I am intrigued by the nerve locations and paths you mention. Yes, to me they seem like wondrously purposeful design. Hope to follow-up on that remark in a few weeks. First I have to finish my taxes.
What's your point? Is this the "Sign up and show everyone how you don't understand the Theory of Evolution" thread?
Sharks have evolved into pretty much the ideal form for what they do. They are, essentially, organic guided missiles. Also, to be accurate, the shark species existing today are not the same species that existed 100 million years ago. There have been some changes. But, all in all, it's very difficult to improve on the design of a shark, for what it does.
Up until humans started hunting them en masse, the only thing in the seas that could take on a shark were Orcas.
So, there's no magic. Sharks are an apex predator and there's simply nothing in their environment pushing them to evolve.
The rat squirrel in this article probably occupies a niche where there is no competition. So, there isn't much pushing it to evolve, either.
Could be because I don't hang on line, waiting for replies. It must be sad to be that lonely.
You posted the lyrics to a long song about hallucinogenic drugs. Can't help it if we draw the obvious inference.
Eleven million years of random mutations, and not a single one favorable. He must have bad Karma.
Itchy's name just reminded me of the song Itchycoopark...
You posted the lyrics to an entire song just because the title, Itchycoopark, had Itchy in it?
The reason I posted the entire song is because after reading the lyrics I realized the song made more sense than any evilone(evo) post I had ever read.
Ummmm, I see....yeah, whatever you say....okay...
I love it when they find living fossils. I always used to fantasize as a little kid that there were dinosaurs on some lost island somewhere.
Ummmm, I see....yeah, whatever you say....okay.
Good boy
You're learning
Good boy You're learning
Nahh, I already knew you make no sense.
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