I imagine they were seen by "someone", he just didn't happen to be a biologist who realized what he was seeing.
OK, just how does a land based animal reappear after 4,015,000,000 days without being seen by someone?Yeah, apparently the local hunters knew they existed for some time. IIRC the same thing apparently happened WRT the coelacanth - after it was rediscovered off the coast of Africa, someone else discovered that it had been available in fish markets on the eastern side of the Indian Ocean.I imagine they were seen by "someone", he just didn't happen to be a biologist who realized what he was seeing.
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.