When the animal was discovered, it made the headlines as biologists thought it belonged to a new family of animals, rather than just a new species of an existing family.
They named it
Laonastes aenigmamus, or Laotian rock rat.
In fact, it belongs to the family of Diatomyidae and resembles a small squirrel but is not a rat, said paleontologist Mary Dawson, of the Carnegie Natural Museum in Pittsburgh, Penn.
Finding an animal thought to be extinct is even more exciting than discovering a new species, said George Schaller, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) biologist who stumbled across the new animal last year.
The rodent is a nocturnal mammal that inhabits a remote Laotian jungle, and is known to local ethnic groups who call it Kha-nyou.
Scientist have been unable so far to see a live Laonastes. The only one found had been killed by hunters and was put on sale at a local market where it was spotted by WCS researchers.
