A weird species of rodent, totally new to science, has been discovered on sale in a southeast Asian food market. The rock rat - or kha-nyou as it is known in Laos - is unlike any rodent seen before by scientists.
"It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables," says conservation biologist Robert Timmins, "And I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before." People in the Khammouan region of Laos know of the species, and prepare it by roasting it on a skewer, says Timmins, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in New York City, US.
Timmins and his team have subsequently trapped the animal with the help of local people, but have never seen it alive either in the wild or in the market. Relatively little is yet known of how it lives or the full extent of its habitats.
The creature looks something like a cross between a large dark rat and a squirrel, but is actually more closely related to guinea pigs and chinchillas. The long-whiskered rodent has a thick, furry tail, large paws, stubby limbs and is around 40 centimetres from nose to tail. Initial evidence suggests it gives birth to a single young at a time. The discovery was reported in the journal Systematics and Biodiversity.
What makes Laonastes aenigmamus so unusual is that it is not closely related to any other rodents. The researchers behind the find have had to create a whole new family, the Laonastidae, to accommodate it. |