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.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Nahh, I already knew you make no sense.
Sorry buddy but That's my line.
Taste just like chicken!
I was once getting ready to go clubing with a friend and she called my cell.... I answered and she said that she had a quick errand to run and that she wanted me to join her.
She picks me up, I jump in the SUV and ask where are we going? She said her boss needed her to deliver mail to her residence and to turn on some lights to deter theft. The following day this poor girl had to go do yard work, feed the cats and take out the trash.
Poor Trafficant... why did he have to do it?
Maybe if you actually posted something of substance, instead of idiotic jibes at people's FReeper names, you wouldn't have this problem. You do almost nothing but troll, and then whine when you become the trollee rather than the troller.
Is this the Scrat from "Ice Age"?
Well, because if you dish it out, you need to be able to take it. I've been inhabiting the flamiest of on-line forums for well over a decade, back before the web even, and I have a lot of practice with both. Of course, if you troll, you're diminishing the forum for people who are here for serious discussion, and some of those people happen to be on your side.
The frustration you express - that you can't find anything that refutes evolution - is inevitable when you challenge a well-established scientific theory. No established theory is going to be thrown out for a few anomalous results, because we know from experience that 99% of apparently anomalous results are not really anomalous, once you've investigate them. If and when evolution is overthrown - and I'd bet the farm against a cup of coffee it won't ever be - it will be a result of an accumulation of a large amount of contrary evidence, comparable in weight to the literally millions of pieces of data supporting evolution. There are no short cuts.
That you can't find anything that refutes evolution - is inevitable when you challenge a well-established scientific theory
I have ONE thing that totally refutes evolution.
It's called the "born again experience"
You should try it you would like it forever and ever.
I love ideas whose primary evidence is a gun at your head.
You too, if the Muslims are right. And If I'm right, both you and they are wasting a great deal of time on a myth.
Based on the levels of anger you display I would say you haven't passed the first trimester, much less been born again.
I can always count on people clanging cymbals and sounding trumpets, claiming they have been born again, all the while rubbing their hands in glee at the prospects of their enemies roasting.
Based on the levels of anger you display
Please link me to the posts where I appear to be angry.
I can think of nothing I despise more that arguments based on threats.
Who have I threaten with what?
You invoked Pascal's wager -- a tactic used when you have no actual argument. Believe what I believe or fry in hell.
You invoked Pascal's wager -- a tactic used when you have no actual argument. Believe what I believe or fry in hell.
I quoted the Bible
You'll have to take that up with God.
Anyone can quote the Bible to prove anything. The Bible has passages that approve of slavery and passages that assert God ordered genocides.
It's interesting that Jesus was asked a couple of times exactly what is required to get to heaven, and rather than saying you must believe the earth is 6000 years old, He wasted the opportunity by saying you must obey the commandments and love your neighbors, including your enemies.
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