Supposedly extinct kangaroo rat resurfaces after 30 years

Science Mag ^ | 4/30/18 | Elizabeth Pennisi

[Libloather]

The last time anyone saw the San Quintin kangaroo rat was more than 30 years ago, in the arid scrublands of Baja California in Mexico. Mexican authorities declared the small mammal critically endangered, and possibly extinct, in 1994. So biologists couldn't believe their eyes when not one, but four San Quintin kangaroo rats (Dipodomys gravipes) hopped into their survey traps in 2017.

Named for their ability to leap like kangaroos, the rats are key species in arid areas across western North America, dispersing seeds and feeding predators such as coyotes and foxes. The San Quintin kangaroo rat is about 12 centimeters long, with a long, tufted tail and enormous hind legs that allow it to leap about 2 meters and speed away at 10 kilometers per hour. They once lived by the thousands in a narrow coastal valley stretching 150 kilometers along the Pacific coast of northern Baja California.

But their numbers began to dwindle with the introduction of intensive agriculture in the 1970s, after which their habitat and food disappeared. Then, just 9 months ago, a team of researchers doing a routine inventory of mammals in the region discovered the rats in their survey traps. None of them had ever seen the species before, so they had to compare it with museum specimens and photographs, they will report in an upcoming issue of the Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences.

[gundog]

We’ve got kangaroo mice around here that no one seems to know about.

[editor-surveyor]

.
>> “Are they allowed to do this?” <<

No!

And if you do anything to help them without a guvvermint lie-sends its a serious felony.
.

[Mastador1]

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-saving-endangered-species-luxury-or-necessity-2004jan25-story.html

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/kangaroo-rat-riverside-county-san-diego-zoo.html

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/05/01/Feds-end-endangered-rat-case-in-Calif/5756799300800/

Yeah, whatever...............

[EdnaMode]

Yup it’s definitely climate change.

[Hugin]

I’m well aware of the EPA and the kangaroo rat, but this took place in Baja California (Mexico). So that had nothing to do with it.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Muad-dib?

[neverevergiveup]

They are cute. If they pay me and give me the land to do it, I’ll raise them and increase their numbers dramatically. Play them a little Sinatra, get them some wine soaked nuts, and nature will take its course. In the meantime, I’ll keep a journal and go through some good Cabernet.

[Does so]

Surprisingly cute critters...

Reminds me of chipmunks—but to hold them, you have to bribe them with seeds!

[Mastador1]

And I'm well aware of where it occurred, I was speaking to the insanity of disrupting MAN for creatures insignificantly different from others, to protect them.

So sorry that I didn't point out that out and bold face it in my original post.

Or if your point is that it's just happening in third world Mexico, well OK.

[centurion316]

So, the kangaroo rats need a license? How do they get such a license? Can they pay in seeds? My sentence referred to the rats who had the audacity to defy the government and come back from extension. It was humor. Thank you anyway.

[editor-surveyor]

.
Yes, understood!

[Duchess47]

It looks suspiciously like the desert kangaroo rat which is all over the south west.

[centurion316]

Thank you very much for sending those links. However, when dealing with Kangaroo Rats, the specific species must be very important, or so say the scientists. In two of these articles, they are concerned about the Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat which may be breeding like rabbits these days. The other article is about the Tipton Kangaroo Rat.

Our little story is about the San Quintin Kangaroo Rat, nothing to do with the other little kangaroo rats. I’m guessing that people who live around kangaroo rats better become experts at distinguishing the various species. If you run over with your brush hog a herd of San Quintin kangaroo rats that you thought were Stephen’s kangaroo rats it could become a Federal case.

[Does so]

Like so:

[hinckley buzzard]

Yes. Be advised, the official definition of “extinction” in the government vocabulary is probably far from what you might expect. In official lingo, “extinction” is often used to describe population loss in a defined locale or micro ecosystem. Thus a common minnow known as the snail darter was defined as threatened with “extinction” if the Tombigbee river was dammed. The fact that it proliferated abundantly in many other rivers was unimportant to the legal attempt to block the dam construction.

Yeah. Deep state shit been going on a long time.

[higgmeister]

I bet they taste like squirrel.

[hinckley buzzard]

Good luck. If this rat had indeed become extinct, some other varmint would have filled the ecological niche and nature would have moved on without noticing.All the grad students in the world could not have shown otherwise.

[ully2]

That’s one old rat.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 5/06/2018. Thanks Libloather.

[Pelham]

Evolution. These are a whole new bunch of rats.