Patra Caesar
16-05-2005, 06:27
From The Times of London in The Australian, on news.com.au (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15279494-13762,00.html)
A humans and Urang-Utan belong to the same family, but a discovery this week has found a new family in the animal kingdom.
A new species on the menu
From correspondents in Bangkok
May 14, 2005
A BIZARRE rodent killed as food in Southeast Asia has been identified as a new species representing a new family of wildlife.
The creature, which resembles a cross between a rat and a guinea pig and is known locally as a kha-nyou, was spotted for sale in a food market in Laos by Robert Timmins of the World Conservation Society, who recognised it as an "oddball rodent" that was new to science.
Analysis of its anatomy and genetic make-up have revealed that the kha-nyou diverged from other rodents millions of years ago and belongs to a previously unknown family - a broad classification above genus and species.
Humans, for example, belong to the family Hominidae, which also includes the great apes - chimpanzees, gorillas and orang utans.
New families are identified so rarely that scientists yesterday had trouble recalling the last one - a group of bats that was discovered in Thailand in 1974.
"To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary," Dr Timmins said. "For all we know, this could be the last remaining mammal family left to be discovered."
It has been given the Latin name Laonastes aenigmamus, or "enigmatic mouse that lives among stones".
The family has been given the name Laonastidae.
The new species, which is described in the journal Systematics and Biodiversity, has long whiskers, stubby legs and a tail covered in dense hair. Adults have bodies about 30cm long, with a 15cm tail that is not quite as bushy as that of a squirrel.
Since Dr Timmins noticed the specimen for sale at a hunters' market in 1996, while he was working on an anti-poaching initiative in Laos, several more carcasses have been identified.
"It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables," he said. "I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before."
Only now have researchers become sufficiently confident of its identity to proclaim it a member of a new family.
No Western scientist has yet seen a kha-nyou alive. Interviews with hunters who have trapped the rodent, however, have established that it prefers areas of limestone outcroppings and forest cover and seems to be a nocturnal vegetarian.
It also gives birth to one offspring at a time, rather than a litter.
A humans and Urang-Utan belong to the same family, but a discovery this week has found a new family in the animal kingdom.
A new species on the menu
From correspondents in Bangkok
May 14, 2005
A BIZARRE rodent killed as food in Southeast Asia has been identified as a new species representing a new family of wildlife.
The creature, which resembles a cross between a rat and a guinea pig and is known locally as a kha-nyou, was spotted for sale in a food market in Laos by Robert Timmins of the World Conservation Society, who recognised it as an "oddball rodent" that was new to science.
Analysis of its anatomy and genetic make-up have revealed that the kha-nyou diverged from other rodents millions of years ago and belongs to a previously unknown family - a broad classification above genus and species.
Humans, for example, belong to the family Hominidae, which also includes the great apes - chimpanzees, gorillas and orang utans.
New families are identified so rarely that scientists yesterday had trouble recalling the last one - a group of bats that was discovered in Thailand in 1974.
"To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary," Dr Timmins said. "For all we know, this could be the last remaining mammal family left to be discovered."
It has been given the Latin name Laonastes aenigmamus, or "enigmatic mouse that lives among stones".
The family has been given the name Laonastidae.
The new species, which is described in the journal Systematics and Biodiversity, has long whiskers, stubby legs and a tail covered in dense hair. Adults have bodies about 30cm long, with a 15cm tail that is not quite as bushy as that of a squirrel.
Since Dr Timmins noticed the specimen for sale at a hunters' market in 1996, while he was working on an anti-poaching initiative in Laos, several more carcasses have been identified.
"It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables," he said. "I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before."
Only now have researchers become sufficiently confident of its identity to proclaim it a member of a new family.
No Western scientist has yet seen a kha-nyou alive. Interviews with hunters who have trapped the rodent, however, have established that it prefers areas of limestone outcroppings and forest cover and seems to be a nocturnal vegetarian.
It also gives birth to one offspring at a time, rather than a litter.