Monday, December 17, 2007

Giant rat and tiny possum discovered in Indonesia jungle

As the article states, "Finding new species of mammals in the 21st century is considered very rare." Recently, in Jakarta, Indonesia, a giant rat and a tiny possum was discovered by a team of American and Indonesian scientists. The animals were found in the Foja Mountains rainforest in eastern Papua province. "The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat," said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. "With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip." The article also says that the possum was described as "one of the world's smallest marsupials." This discovery made me wonder whether or not there are even more new, exotic species of animals out there in the world. If there are, then our world has so many more magnificent creatures waiting to discover. My opinion on this article is that discovering more new animals is a fantastic thing, and this article really enlightened me.

I found my information at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22290101/

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