New rodent family discovered in market

Scientists have announced the discovery of an unknown family of rodent sold as food in Laos. The species studied by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society is known locally as kha-nyou and is thought to have split from other rodent families millions of years ago. From the New York Times:

 Content News Photos 05 05 12 Rodent(The Wildlife Conservation Society's Dr. Rober) Timmins, who is based in Madison, Wis., but concentrates on research in Southeast Asia, said in an interview that he first came on the animals laid out on market tables. Local farmers and hunters trapped or snared the animals, which they also referred to as rock rats, slaughtered them and took them to market. As far as he knew, Timmins said, no Western scientists have ever seen a kha-nyou alive…

Timmins' encounter occurred in the late 1990s, about the same time that another scientist, Dr. Mark F. Robinson, independently collected several of the carcasses as specimens. The adults have bodies about a foot long, with a 6-inch tail that is not as bushy as a squirrel's. They knew immediately that this was, as Timmins said, "an oddball rodent."

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