One rodent is hanging upside down by its feet in the covered entrance to
our upper outside terrace. As it looks at first sight like a rotting
leaf, I have named it Vespertilio Qualis Folium Putridum Lagorciae.
mj
Roger Collett wrote:
> Food for thought?
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> from the NY Times
>
> May 16, 2005
> The Name of the Rat
> It is a touchy use of the word "discovered" when a rodent that
> Laotians routinely eat is
> purchased at a market and then declared to be a new species. Just
> think of the debate over
> saying America was discovered by a European who stumbled over it
> 12,000 years after humans first
> settled there. But until field researchers found the animal on sale in
> Thakhet, and lab analysts
> identified it as a separate species, the foot-long critter that
> Laotians call kha-nyou, or rock
> rat, didn't have a scientific name.
>
> Now, newly inducted into the noble order of Rodentia as Laonastes
> aenigmamus ("stone-dwelling
> enigmatic mouse"), kha-nyou finally has an official slot in the
> ancient kingdom of Animalia. Dr.
> Robert Timmins of the Wildlife Conservation Society, who was involved
> in the identification of
> the new species, is worried that his discovery might not be around
> much longer to enjoy its new
> status. In fact, scientists have yet to see a living kha-nyou. And
> there can't be too many
> around, given the fact that it took so long for scientists to spot
> one, that they live only
> among limestone boulders in Laos, and that the locals find them tasty.
> Two other species
> identified in this century, the bumblebee bat and the Chinese river
> dolphin, already rank among
> the dozen most endangered species in the world.
>
> It is extraordinary, as Dr. Timmins noted, that an animal that took
> off on its own evolutionary
> course millions of years ago could remain unknown to science for so
> long, and it is troubling
> that it might have vanished before we even got acquainted. We wish the
> kha-nyou a long and happy
> existence - preferably in Thakhet. There are enough rodents elsewhere,
> thank you.
>
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