New Rodent Species Found

IZ Reloaded writes "A new species of rodent has been discovered by World Conservation Society researcher Dr. Robert Timmins. He found this creature in a hunter's market in Central Laos. The creature known as Kha-Nyou to the locals is so unique it represents an entire new family of wildlife. Kha-Nyou diverged from other rodents millions of years ago."

Comments

Clarification

[skatrek]

AFAIK "family" and "species" mean different things (the mnemonic "King Philip Cried Out For Goodness Sake" comes to mind - the order is kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) ... they found a new species which is so different they had to make a new family/genus for it?

Re:Clarification

[jericho4.0]

Linnean nomenclature is on it's way out. It implies black and white in a world of grey.

Yes, New Family/Genus/Species, total odd-ball

[billstewart]

One of the articles quoted the guy saying, "we knew we had a really odd-ball rodent." Wikipedia has already been updated to identify it as Family Laonastidae, Genus/Species "Laonastes aenigmamus". The Wikipedia author identifies the suborder as "Hystricognathi"; one of the news articles suggested that Timmons thinks that Laonstes may be an early ancestor of that suborder, but that's filtered through reporter-speak.

An article predating this discovery lists 29 Families of Rodentia. The Old-World Hystricognathi include old-world porcupines, mole rats, cane rats, and Dassie rats; the New World families are a lot broader.

"Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist!

boing boing

[Anonymous Coward]

and as I see they even managed to write up something interesting about it. And look! A screenshot of that kha-nyou thingie...