The Laotian Rock Rat

Here is an article on evolution discovered in the Friday, March 10 issue of the Columbus Dispatch:



‘New’ species has been alive for millions of years


Washington--It has the face of a rat and the tail of a skinny squirrel—and scientists say this creature discovered living in central Laos is pretty special: It’s a species thought to have been extinct for 11 million years.

Last spring, biologists declared they had discovered a new species, nicknamed the Laotian rock rat.

It turns out the little guy isn’t new after all, but a rare kind of survivor: a member of a family that had been known only from fossils.

Neither is it a rat. This species called Diatomyidae, looks more like a small squirrel or tree shrew, said paleontologist Mary Dawson, of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Dawson, with colleagues in France and China, report the creature’s new identity in today’s edition of the Journal of Science.

The resemblance is “ absolutely striking,” Dawson said. As soon as her team saw reports about the rodent’s discovery, “we thought, ‘My goodness, this is not a new family.’”

They set out to prove that through comparisons between the bones of today’s specimens and fossils found in China and elsewhere in Asia.

“To reappear after 11 million years is more exciting than if the rodent really had been a new species,” said George Schaller, a naturalist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, which unveiled the creature’s existence last year.

“It show you it’s well worth looking around in this world, still, to see what’s out there,” Schaller said.

The nocturnal rodent lives in Laotian Forests largely unexplored by outsiders.

Schaller calls the area a wonderland, because biologists who have ventured there have found unique animals, such as a type of wild ox called the saola, barking deer, and never-before-seen bats. Dawson describes it as a prehistoric zoo.

Locals call the rodent khanyou. Scientists haven’t yet found a breathing one, only the bodies of those caught by hunters or for sale at meat markets. (AP)
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Commentary:

They are at it again. Unwilling to admit their mistake, evolutionists have again discovered something. Dispatch readers should smell a rat . . . or there is a squirrel loose in the fossil record.

Here is how the discovery would read if the truth meant anything to the Associated Press and those evolutionist vying for space in newspapers around the world:


Animal species thought extinct has been discovered
Zoologists were excited today upon discovering a creature with a rat-like face and a squirrel-like tail in Laos. Heretofore, this animal, created by God on the sixth day of creation week, had not shown up in higher sedimentary layers deposited during the Noahic Flood several thousand years ago. As yet scientists have not determined whether the small animal is most akin to the squirrel, rat, shrew or other species of rodent.

Similar to the process whereby varieties of squirrels or dogs originally came from a specific genotype, it is probable that these animals named Diatomyidae are either a distinct species all their own or they came to their present form through a process of natural selection and mutation (micro-evolution) from a pair of animals taken aboard the Ark by Noah and his family a very few thousand years before Christ came to earth.

These nocturnal rodents are hunted in Laotian forests and often sold in meat markets. Other animals such as the wild ox, barking deer and rare bats also live in this seldom-explored wonderland. This is just another example of how our all-powerful creator provides for the needs of his people. An animal we thought was extinct has obviously been providing for the food needs of people since God spoke all creation into existence a very few thousand years ago. To Him be the honor and power and glory forever and ever. Amen.