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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Perhaps this verse will help. Jesus said it Himself.
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me."
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Ah, well. Nice try.
Nobody's perfect.
I am impressed, almost 200 posts on a thread about prehistoric animals and not one picture of Helen Thomas. BRAVO!!!!
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
Link me to the post where I said the earth is 6000 years old.
Or where I said that it was a part of the Salvation process
to believe that.
Thanks
Perhaps you haven't, but if you haven't why do you post here without arguing science. Your posts imply an incompatibility between the findings of science and the requirements of faith.
These kinds of misunderstandings seem to crop up when posters neglect to say exactly what they do believe the evidence indictes.
relatively free of name calling
Except for that sophomoric 'evilone (evo)' thing (where 'evilone' = the biblical 'evil one').
A person doesn't first think of viruses, bacteria, fungi, and such small attackers as bugs, worms, and barnacles when picturing some hypothetical "apex predator" such as T-Rex, polar bear or sharks -- but the small can and will take down the big.
Even the brain-dead Darwinistic "natural selection" would theorize that something must EVOLVE take advantage of the shark, at some point in under 10 million years or so -- bang -- the whole species is gone, eh? Of course, one way in Darwinism is brain dead is in its inability to understand statisical inference and probability, so -- okay, given that Stupids' view of the world, yes YOU ARE RIGHT!
Yeah - they all lived in Bedrock along with Fred & Dino.
Something I don't understand about the 6000 age limit to the universe - how do you explain starlight reaching us from stars that are millions of light-years away. The light from these stars takes millions of years to reach the earth. But if nothing is older than 6000 years - how did it get here that quick?
So have cockroaches - Oops, I forgot they have only been around for 6000 years.
And I guess the petrified forest (which took tens of thousands of years for mineral deposits to replace the wood cells) must just be an illusion.
I have, and I'm here to tell you its great! Sliced duck breast on rye bread with a bit of German stoneground mustard. Yum!!!
Why do you think it would?
Because creationists are, by and large, ignorant dopes.
And why would anyone think that the two concepts are mutually exclusive?
I firmly believe that evolution is the reason for the thousands and thousands of different life forms on Earth. I also believe just as firmly that an intelligent God created and designed the evolutionary process - just like he created and designed our climate and weather process.
What is so hard to understand about that?
Sure. But you know what I'm talking about when I say "apex predator." All species fall victim to viruses, bacteria etc., but that's not what we're talking about.
Even the brain-dead Darwinistic "natural selection" would theorize that something must EVOLVE take advantage of the shark, at some point in under 10 million years or so -- bang -- the whole species is gone, eh?
Why? Some species fill a niche incredibly well, so it is very difficult for other species to "jump ahead" of them on the food chain. Anyway, sharks do get preyed upon by Orcas, and young and juvenile sharks get eaten by a lot of things.
Of course, one way in Darwinism is brain dead is in its inability to understand statisical inference and probability, so -- okay, given that Stupids' view of the world, yes YOU ARE RIGHT!
So, you're saying every species needs to go extinct in ten million years?
You actually denigrate your own faith by reducing it to questions of facts and numbers.
Anyway, you're always going to lose the debate if you try to prove religion using facts.
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