 Hog-nosed Shrew Rat (courtesy: Kevin C. Rowe, Senior Curator of Mammals, Museum Victoria) Hog-nosed Shrew Rat (courtesy: Kevin C. Rowe, Senior Curator of Mammals, Museum Victoria) Jake Esselstyn, Curator of Mammals for the LSU Museum of Natural Science (courtesy: Kevin C. Rowe, Senior Curator of Mammals, Museum Victoria) 
 
 LSU Museum of Natural Science Curator of Mammals Jake Esselstyn and his international collaborators have discovered a new genus and species on a remote, mountainous island in Indonesia. Unbeknownst to each other, they both caught the same type of animal in their respective traps and immediately knew they were looking at a new species. Photo: Museum Victoria 
 
 "It looks like it's whistling all the time," Dr Rowe said. "I am still amazed that we can walk into a forest and find a new species of mammal that is so obviously different from any species, or even genus, that has ever been documented by science." The pig-like nose with forward-facing nostrils inspired its Greek-in-origin genus name: Hyorhinomys ('hyo' meaning hog, 'rhino' meaning nose and 'mys' meaning rat). Relative to other Sulawesi murines, the species has extremely large ears (~ 21% of head and body length), very long urogenital hairs, prominent and medially bowing hamular processes on the pterygoid bones, extremely long and procumbent lower incisors, and unusually long articular surfaces on the mandibular condyles. Morphologically, the new taxon is most similar to a group of endemic Sulawesi rats known commonly as “shrew rats.” These are long faced, carnivorous murines, and include the genera Echiothrix, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Sommeromys, and Tateomys. The mouth can hardly open suggesting the carnivorous rat 'slurps' up its food - most likely earthworms, beetle larvae and other invertebrates. But thanks to the fieldwork of a research team from Australia, Indonesia and America the 250-gram animal has been discovered in the remote, high-altitude jungle of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The nearest village is a two-hour hike away and even that village is considered remote. In 2014, the scientists described the Sulawesi water rat, Waiomys mamasae, which was known to villagers and their guides but not to the scientific community. These animals Esselstyn and his colleagues have described are new species within new genera, because the animals could not be placed within any existing group.
– A newly found creature's name is the hog-nosed rat, and things don't get any more picturesque from there. Reporting on their find in the Journal of Mammalogy, scientists describe the animal, found in 2013 on Mount Dako, on Indonesia's Sulawesi Island: It's a long-faced carnivorous creature with "extremely large ears (~21% of head and body length) [and] very long urogenital hairs"—the latter being pubic hairs. Co-author Kevin Rowe tells Mashable Australia that it's unclear what purpose the hair serves, though "it probably helps it in some kind of reproductive way. Both males and females have those long ... hairs, like whiskers. They're not like human pubic hairs." Among its other features: Rowe explains that the 18-inch-long rat's mouth opening is so narrow that it can't open it much. "It probably eats worms and insect larvae, just kind of slurping them up." (In line with that slurping, it also lacks the coronoid process on the dentary bone, which other mammals rely on to chew.) KNOE reports it's the third genus newly identified by the international team since 2012 (here's another of the team's finds), and recalls the moment the rat was found—twice. Rowe, of Museum Victoria, and LSU Museum of Natural Science Curator of Mammals Jake Esselstyn went to check their respective traps, saw what was clear to them was a new species, "came back to camp and were both surprised that the other one had it as well." The rodent was given the name Hyorhinomys stuempkei, which the Age translates from the Greek as "'hyo' meaning hog, 'rhino' meaning nose and 'mys' meaning rat." (Another unusual animal-related find: a mysterious, giant, jellylike "thing.")