A unique species of near-toothless rat that lives off earthworms and does not chew or gnaw has been discovered in Indonesia.
The shrew-like animal with a long, pointed snout was described online in this week’s British journal Biology Letters.
Paucidentomys vermidax, which translates loosely to “few-toothed rat” and “worm eater,” is the only rodent out of more than 2,200 known species that does not have molars and instead has bicuspid upper incisors, the article said.
Photo: EPA / MUSEUM VICTORIA AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
Two rats were found in the mountainous rain forest of southern Sulawesi Island last year on Mount Latimojong and 100km northwest on Mount Gandangdewata.
Since it lacks cheek teeth, the rat sucks in earthworms and slices them with its incisors before spitting out the pieces and then slurping bites down whole, said co-author of the article Anang Achmadi, from Indonesia’s Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense.
The researchers said the discovery is important because it shows how rodents, which are known for biting and chewing, were forced to evolve to survive in Sulawesi’s environment.
“What defines rodents is their capacity to gnaw with their ever-growing incisors, which are worn down to form chisels,” said co-author Kevin Rowe, senior curator of mammals at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
“It’s a remarkable evolution that a trait that’s been so successful [and] has allowed rodents to chew into everything from seeds to felling trees to eating our garbage and chewing their way into our house, this species has given up on that capacity in the pursuit of its lifestyle, which appedars to include eating earthworms,” Rowe added.
The new rat demonstrates the island’s unique biodiversity despite human threats from illegal logging and mining, Achmadi said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RSS