Carnivorous Swamp Beast Discovered In Madagascar 157
crudmonkey writes "Researchers have identified a previously unknown species of carnivore lurking in one of the world's most endangered lakes. Durrell's vontsira, named in honor of the late conservationist and writer Gerald Durrell, was first photographed swimming in Madagascar's Lake Alaotra in 2004. Subsequent surveys confirmed the mongoose-like creature was indeed a new species. Durrell's vontsira is the first new carnivorous mammal discovered in Madagascar in 24 years. Little is known about the species, which is roughly the size of a cat."
Re:Which is it? Or is it both? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess they assume that having written "in Madagascar" once, you would understand the point and they would not need to keep repeating it. OTOH, why pass up an opportunity for being unnecessarily pedantic.
First things first (Score:4, Insightful)
what does it taste like?
beast , Any animal other than a human (Score:1, Insightful)
for some reason you're assuming beast has a different meaning
Re:and then... (Score:5, Insightful)
it went extinct.
Oh come on, that's not trolling. The creature in question lives in a single lake. The land around the lake, which used to be heavy forest has been cut down. This now causes all the soil to get dumped into the lake whenever it rains. Even this article itself said that so much soil has been dumped into the lake that during the dry season, the level of water drops to a depth of 2 feet!
The comment there isn't a -Troll. It is merely prematurely +Informative.
Re:I don't usually complain about summaries (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't usually complain about the summaries (because I know they're all bad) but this one was a real disappointment to me.
But you aren't even complaining about the summary, you're complaining about the title.
If you'd read the summary you wouldn't have been disappointed by the pictures because of the following.
mongoose-like creature
roughly the size of a cat.
So stop complaining about the summary when you didn't even read the summary.
Also, heh. The captcha was "retorts".
Re:First things first (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:R.O.U.S. (Score:3, Insightful)
More like a Rodent Of Usual Size. It's not much larger than a rat. :P
Re:I don't usually complain about summaries (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be careful about describing a previously unknown carnivore as cute. It might have been unknown because nobody met one before, but it could be because nobody who met one lived to tell about it.
Re:I don't usually complain about summaries (Score:3, Insightful)
...
Have you, uh, looked at the pictures of it in the article?
Re:We are so quick to label it a 'beast' (Score:2, Insightful)
The...'beast'...has most probably NEVER encountered humans before...
I wouldn't say so, as this region is quite populated. I bet that this species was already well known amongst local natives, but simply not to our scientists.