# New Species Discovered For Sale as Lunch! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 14, 2005, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860 "2005-05-14T20:54:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/1 "2005-05-14T20:54:27Z")
[I keep picturing the biologist going, “What the _hell_ is that?”](http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7370) > [@](#): > > A weird species of rodent, totally new to science, has been discovered on sale in a southeast Asian food market. The rock rat - or kha-nyou as it is known in Laos - is unlike any rodent seen before by scientists. > > “It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables,” says conservation biologist Robert Timmins, “And I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before.” People in the Khammouan region of Laos know of the species, and prepare it by roasting it on a skewer, says Timmins, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in New York City, US. > > Timmins and his team have subsequently trapped the animal with the help of local people, but have never seen it alive either in the wild or in the market. Relatively little is yet known of how it lives or the full extent of its habitats. ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/2 "2005-05-14T23:18:08Z")
Heh, I read about this in the newspaper. I thought it was funny how we think that we are so superior in science, and people in another country have been eating this animal for who knows how long. I wonder if they’ll credit its discovery to all of Asia or just one country, or the American who “discovered” that it was for sale. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/3 "2005-05-15T00:28:15Z")
> [@chaoticdonkey](#): > > Heh, I read about this in the newspaper. I thought it was funny how we think that we are so superior in science, and people in another country have been eating this animal for who knows how long. It doesn’t really take a lot of scientific knowledge to eat something. > [@](#): > > I wonder if they’ll credit its discovery to all of Asia or just one country, Since it’s only known from Laos, why would it be credited to all of Asia? > [@](#): > > or the American who “discovered” that it was for sale. Of course its discovery _to science_ will be credited to the person who recogized it to be something new _to science_. The locals, on the other hand, deserve full credit for discovery of its culinary attributes. But pretty much all scientific discoveries of new species are plants and animals (at least of vertebrates) that are well known to local people, whether they eat them or not. This one is unusual mainly because it seems to have been used so regularly by the locals without having come to the attention of scientists previously. ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/4 "2005-05-15T00:51:52Z")
:: looks up from his fried coelecanth burger :: what? ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/5 "2005-05-15T01:41:04Z")
> [@Spatial Rift 47](#): > > :: looks up from his fried coelecanth burger :: > what? Actually, scientists first realized that coelacanths live in the waters around Indonesia when a vacationing biologist found one in a fish market in…I want to say 1997. Fairly recently. Before that, they’d really only been known to live around the Comoros Islands. The Comorans knew about them, of course, but they taste terrible and fishermen just threw them back. The only reason scientsist knew that the coelacanth was still living as early as they did is that one got swept into a current and ended up getting caught by a fisherman off the coast of East London, South Africa in 1938. He thought it was unusual and brought it to local museum, where the curator, Marjorie Courtenay-Lattimer, recognized it for what it was. (It’s named after her, btw: _Lattimeria chalumnae_). Um. Everyone needs a hobby. Mine happens to be coelacanths. That’s not weird, is it? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/6 "2005-05-15T01:54:19Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Um. Everyone needs a hobby. Mine happens to be coelacanths. That’s not weird, is it? Do you collect them? Race them? What? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/7 "2005-05-15T01:54:47Z")
Anyone else read Howard Waldrop’s _The Ugly Chickens_? ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/8 "2005-05-15T02:13:54Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Since it’s only known from Laos, why would it be credited to all of Asia? I’d assumed that they might not obey political boundaries, and that since cultural diffusion is always there, that there might be another nation that’s been doing this for millenia. I guess it was misleading, though, unless you happen to be a mindreader and biologist. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/9 "2005-05-15T02:18:33Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Do you collect them? Race them? What? Oh man, I WISH I could collect them. They grow to be 6 feet, though, I don’t think my studio apartment is quite big enough. Seriously, I just really really really like coelacanths. I think they are awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/10 "2005-05-15T03:10:14Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Oh man, I WISH I could collect them. They grow to be 6 feet, though, I don’t think my studio apartment is quite big enough. Like goldfish, they will just grow to the size of the bowl.\* So get a baby one and you can raise dwarf coelocanths. \*Actually, I don’t know for sure if this is true for goldfish. It’s a Mailbag question i’ve been meaning to research. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/11 "2005-05-15T17:20:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Like goldfish, they will just grow to the size of the bowl.\* So get a baby one and you can raise dwarf coelocanths. > > \*Actually, I don’t know for sure if this is true for goldfish. It’s a Mailbag question i’ve been meaning to research. Dwarf coelacanths! It’ll make me millions! As soon as I figure out how to keep them alive in captivity, that is. Which would be totally awesome, especially when you consider no one else has been able to do it yet and other than 11th grade marine biology, I have no training in marine life! I’m preparing for my trip to the Comoros as we speak… Um, anyway, the OP: COOL! ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/12 "2005-05-15T18:38:10Z")
> [@](#): > > …unlike any rodent seen before by scientists. Unlike any rodent seen before? I’m sorry, but I can only agree with this statement had the rodent actually had 3 heads and was asexual. But come on now, it DOES look like a rat, and it DOES look like a squirrel. Unlike any rodent? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-species-discovered-for-sale-as-lunch/303860/13 "2005-05-16T08:58:10Z")
> [@chaoticdonkey](#): > > I wonder if they’ll credit its discovery to all of Asia or just one country, or the American who “discovered” that it was for sale. … or after the name of the dish? _Rodentia Sandwichus Rattus_