'Extinct' cat-sized chinchilla found alive in shadows of Machu Picchu
Below one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world, scientists have made a remarkable discovery: a living, cat-sized mammal that until now was only known from fossils.
The Machu Picchu arboreal chinchilla rat (Cuscomys oblativa) was first described from two enigmatic skulls discovered in Incan pottery sculpted 400 years ago.
Dug up by Hiram Bingham in 1912, the skulls were believed to belong to a species that went extinct even before Francisco Pizarro showed up in Peru with his motley army. Then in 2009, park ranger Roberto Quispe found what was believed to be a living Machu Picchu arboreal chinchilla rat near the original archaeological site.
“In conservation biology, this type of rediscovery is called the Lazarus effect,” said a team of Mexican and Peruvian scientists, who have sought to confirm Quispe’s discovery.
The scientists — led by Horacio Zeballos the curator of the department of mammalogy at the Museum de Arequipa and Gerardo Ceballos from the Instituto de Ecología of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México — headed into the field in 2012 and tracked down the elusive mammal in the cloud forests near Wiñayhuayna, another archaeological site on the Inca Trail heading towards Machu Picchu.
more:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/26/extinct-cat-sized-chinchilla-found-in-shadows-of-machu-picchu
The fur of the chinchilla is popular in the fur trade due to its extremely soft feel, which is caused by the sprouting of 60 hairs (on average) from each hair follicle.
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Glad he's back.
... it would make a "Peruvian" into the polar opposite of a "Brazilian" ...
Polar opposite.......[URL=
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