Laotian rock rat comes to life

THE first pictures showing a live specimen of a rodent species once thought to have been extinct for 11 million years have been taken by a retired Florida State University professor and a Thai wildlife biologist.

They took video and still photographs of the “living fossil”, which looks like a small squirrel or tree shrew, in May during an expedition to central Laos near the Thai border.

Known as Diatomyidae, scientists have nicknamed it the Laotian rock rat. The creature is not really a rat but a member of a rodent family once known only from fossils.