Rat squirrel rises from the dead

It has the face of a rat and the tail of a skinny squirrel and scientists say this creature discovered living in central Laos is pretty special: It?s a species believed to have been extinct for 11 million years.

It has the face of a rat and the tail of a skinny squirrel and scientists say this creature discovered living in central Laos is pretty special: It’s a species believed to have been extinct for 11 million years.

The long-whiskered rodent made international headlines last spring when biologists declared they’d discovered a brand new species, nicknamed the Laotian rock rat. It turns out the little guy isn’t new after all, but a rare kind of survivor: a member of a family until now known only from fossils. Nor is it a rat.

This species, called Diatomyidae, looks more like small squirrels or tree shrews, said paleontologist Mary Dawson of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Dawson, with colleagues in France and China, report the creature’s new identity in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

To reappear after 11 million years is more exciting than if the rodent really had been a new species, said George Schaller, a naturalist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, which unveiled the creature’s existence last year. Locals call the rodent kha-nyou. Scientists haven’t yet a bagged a breathing one.

SMART BOX
Diverse Laotian forests
• Naturalist George Schaller calls the area “an absolute wonderland”
• Biologists who have ventured in have found unique animals, like a type of wild
ox called the saola, barking deer, and never-before-seen bats
• Research leader Mary Dawson describes it as a prehistoric zoo, teeming with
information about past and present biodiversity

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