Tyrone Lavery has pass years on the sentry for a jumbo betrayer . Lavery , a mammalogist who work at Chicago ’s Field Museum , first heard of a tree - dwelling skunk that locals on Vangunu Island call “ vika ” on his first trip to the islands as a postdoctoral researcher in 2010 . Now , he ’s finally find it .
Tyrone reports the universe of a young ( to skill ) species they ’ve namedUromys vikain a study just published in theJournal of Mammalogy . It ’s the first new rodent found in the Solomon Islands in 80 years—“and it ’s not like people have n’t been try , " as Lavery says in apress statementfrom The Field Museum . " It was just so hard to find . "
The Solomon Islands , situate just east of Papua New Guinea , are biologically keep apart by the Pacific Ocean , and half the mammal native to the islands are found nowhere else . The unique nature of their ecosystem makes the Solomon Islands — much like the Galapagos — fertile earth for scientists .
Though researchers working in the Solomon Islands have distrust the creation of the vika for two decades , the stinker find by Lavery and his colleagues John Vendi and Hikuna Judge is the first specimen recorded by scientists . They spotted it skitter out of a felled tree diagram , and judging by the shape of its skull , could tell that it was n’t like other species of rats native to the country . Before its discovery , Lavery had spend so long search for the elusive skunk that he was beginning to mean that mayhap the small fry ’s rime and folk songs reference vika were just bring up to regular black rats .
But his first inherent aptitude was right . U. vikais more than four times the sizing of a even lowlife , measuring about 18 in long . It lives in trees , and its teeth are strong enough to crack into Cocos nucifera , chewing rotary holes in the shells to hit the meat inside .
Lavery confirm that the massive rat he found was a unique , young species by check out its desoxyribonucleic acid against the DNA of other regional puke coinage , and by confirming with Vangunu Island locals that the scum bag he enchant was indeed the one they called vika . " Vika ’s ancestors probably rafted to the island on flora , and once they suffer there , they evolved into this wonderfully new species , nothing like what they get along from on the mainland , " the mammalogist explained .
The species will be designated as critically endangered , because commercial-grade logging poses a huge terror to its rainforest habitat . It was hard enough to find oneself just one of the git , and there ’s no telling when ( or if ) scientist will see the vika again .
