Found the 'fossil' live rock mouse

A photo of a rock mouse in Laos was captured - the creature that science believes is the only survivor of an ancient rodent group.

You-nyou are found. Photo: BBC The local (in local language) has caught the expedition of retired Florida State University expert David Redfield in May. The picture shows that this gentle creature has fur, a squirrel-sized size, with a wanderer that resembles a duck.

Experts say kha-nyou may be a descendant of a gnawing family that previous studies have speculated were extinct more than 11 million years ago.

The animal was taken near Doy village, close to the Thai border, and released back to the forest after modeling for researchers to take pictures and videos.

Chinese evidence

The animal is scientifically named Laonastes aenigmamus .

Laonastes aenigmamus caught the eye of international researchers for the first time in a wildlife market last year - with dead samples. Based on differences in skulls, teeth, bones and body characteristics along with DNA analysis, scientists initially classified it as a new rodent family, with close relatives to rodents in Africa and South America, not Asia.

But after finding fossils of an extinct rodent in China last summer, people compared it to kha-nyou and found a strange coincidence. Accordingly, scientists believe that the stone mouse in Laos belongs to the same group of extinct rodents in China, called Diatomyidae.

T. An