Charlotte Amelines, MSN Environment Contributor

Laotian rock rat

UTHAI TREESUCON/AP/PA Photos

This curious squirrel-like rodent, with its bushy tail and ungainly duck-like waddle, seems an unlikely candidate for evolutionary longevity. But the shy Laotian rock rat – which was captured and filmed for the first time in 2006 – is a near-perfect match to an ancient group of rodents, the Diatomyidae, previously thought to have died out 11 million years ago in the late Miocene. The family’s sole survivor, the rock rat is found only in an isolated pocket of Laos.

However, it is still a mere babe in ‘living fossil’ terms. Our next great survivor may date back a further 95 million years.

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