'Living fossil' photoed in Laos (AP) Updated: 2006-06-15 10:26
The first pictures showing a live specimen of a rodent species once thought
to have been extinct for 11 million years have been taken by a retired Florida
State University professor and a Thai wildlife biologist.
In this photo provided
by Florida State University, a Diatomyidae is seen in Laos in May 2006.
The Diatomyidae, or Laotian rock rat, was the first live specimen of its
species to be photographed in Doy, a small village in central Laos during
an expedition by Florida State University professor David Redfield and
Thai biologist Uthai Treesucon. The species once was thought to have been
extinct for 11 million years. [AP] |
They took video and still photographs of the "living fossil," which looks
like a small squirrel or tree shrew, in May during an expedition to central Laos
near the Thai border.
Known as Diatomyidae, scientists have nicknamed it the Laotian rock rat. The
creature is not really a rat but a member of a rodent family once known only
from fossils.
The pictures show a docile, squirrel-sized animal with dark dense fur and a
long tail but not as bushy as a squirrel's. It also shows that the creature
waddles like a duck with its hind feet splayed out at an angle - ideal for
climbing rocks.
"I hope these pictures will help in some way to prevent the loss of this
marvelous animal," said David Redfield, a science education professor emeritus.
He and Uthai Treesucon, a bird-watching colleague, befriended hunters who
captured a live rock rat after four failed attempts. They returned the animal,
which the locals call kha-nyou, to its rocky home after photographing it.
The long-whiskered rodent was branded as a new species last year when
biologists first examined dead specimens they found being sold at meat markets.
But they had never seen a live animal until Redfield and Treesucon photographed
it.
"These images are extremely important scientifically, showing as they do an
animal (with) such markedly distinctive anatomical and functional attributes,"
said Mary Dawson, curator emeritus of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie
Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.
Dawson and colleagues in France and China first reported the rock rat's true
identity in the March 10 edition of the journal Science after they compared the
bones of present-day specimens with fossils found in Asia.
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